Aselsan breaks into the global top 40 as five Turkish firms make the Defense News 100

The 2026 edition of the Defense News Top 100 is out, and the Turkish entries tell a story about breadth rather than a single champion. Aselsan climbed three places to 40th, its strongest showing in years, while four other Turkish companies secured places in the global ranking.

Aselsan’s defence revenue grew roughly 26 percent, from $3.54 billion to $4.46 billion. That growth was enough to push the Ankara-based electronics house into the top 40 for the first time.

Five companies, $14.9 billion

Turkish firms on the 2026 list posted combined defence revenue of $14.9 billion:

The surprise entry

The most striking newcomer is Arca Defence, which entered the ranking at 53rd. Its defence revenue jumped from $653.2 million in 2024 to just over $3 billion last year — more than a fourfold increase.

Growth on that scale rarely comes from incremental orders. In the defence sector it usually signals one of two things: a high-volume munitions or platform contract reaching serial production, or a large export delivery clearing in a single reporting year. Arca’s manufacturing investment in Sungurlu, in Turkey’s Çorum province, points to substantial capacity expansion behind the numbers.

Why growing revenue can still mean falling rank

Turkish Aerospace grew defence revenue 16 percent to $3.65 billion — and still slipped one place, to 48th. MKE saw the same pattern at 81st.

The apparent contradiction is a feature of how the ranking works. The Top 100 measures relative position, not absolute growth. With European rearmament and Asia-Pacific modernisation programmes pushing many manufacturers into the 20 to 40 percent growth band, a 16 percent increase can leave a company treading water or slipping slightly.

That dynamic matters for the Turkish cohort specifically. All five firms sit in the middle of the table, between 40th and 81st — the most crowded and most volatile part of the list. Holding position there now requires double-digit growth every year.

What the ranking does and does not measure

The Top 100 counts defence-derived revenue only. Civil aviation, commercial electronics and non-defence business lines are excluded, which is why some companies with very large total turnover sit lower than their overall size would suggest.

The figures also lag by a year: the 2026 list reflects 2025 performance. And because revenue is compared in US dollars, exchange rate movements feed directly into the standings.

Most importantly, it is a revenue table. It does not measure technological depth, export market diversity, or dependence on foreign suppliers for critical subcomponents. Turkish manufacturers continue to work on localising engines, high-resolution sensor detectors and certain composite materials — none of which shows up in a revenue ranking.

Reading the wider list

At the top, little has changed. US and European primes still occupy the first ten places, with defence revenues running to tens of billions of dollars. The gap is a reminder of why a single rank number is a poor proxy for industrial weight: 40th place represents a fraction of what the leaders book.

What the Turkish results do show is structural. Aselsan covers electronics and sensors, Turkish Aerospace covers platforms and air vehicles, Roketsan covers missiles and munitions, MKE covers small arms and ammunition, and Arca’s arrival adds another industrial branch to the mix. The sector no longer rests on one flagship.

Roketsan’s seven-place climb points to a different mechanism again. For missile and munitions producers, revenue growth tends to track delivery volume on systems already in serial production. Rising domestic demand alongside export orders has produced visible expansion in that segment over the past two years.

Sources

• Defense News, “Top 100 for 2026” ranking — company positions and defence revenue figures. The list is published annually using the previous calendar year’s data.
• Hürriyet Daily News and Daily Sabah, 1 September 2026 — placement of the five Turkish firms and the $14.9 billion combined revenue figure.
• Asia Pacific Defence Reporter, 1 September 2026 — assessment of Aselsan’s move into the top 40.

Note: MKE’s 2025 defence revenue could not be verified against the published figure and is therefore omitted from the table.