The United States is by some margin the biggest global arms supplier, followed by Russia, France, China and Germany, according to data compiled by non-partisan research organisation Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
Sipri has devised a pricing unit that allows more accurate comparison of the value of the military capability transferred between countries and over time called the Trend Indicator Value (TIV).
Over a 10-year period between 2014 and 2024, the United States supplied the world with two-and-a-half times more weapons than Russia, and four times more than France, based on TIV units.
In Africa, Russia is the top supplier of arms by TIV units, followed by France then the United States and China.
There are only seven African countries that export arms globally on Sipri’s list. South Africa sells the most, although it doesn’t feature in the the global top-20 (it’s ranked 23). Also, it is not a major supplier of arms to African countries.

Get the data used in this chart from DataDesk