NEW DELHI: From being dependent on foreign arms, India is emerging as a defence exporter while still being the world’s second-largest arms importer.
The story of defence indigenisation is ultimately a story of strategic freedom. India has gone from a negligible arms seller a decade ago to a country landing real customers abroad, from missile deals in Southeast Asia to a growing artillery and air-defence business in the Caucasus.
The clearest sign of that transformation is the export tally.
Defence exports hit a record ₹38,424 crore in 2025-26, according to the defence ministry, a 62.66% jump in a single year. A decade earlier, the figure was just ₹686 crore in 2013-14. It has since multiplied more than 50 times. Domestic defence production has crossed ₹1.78 lakh crore, while the government wants exports to reach ₹50,000 crore by 2029.
Strategically, the gains are significant. Selling abroad lengthens production runs, lowers unit costs for India’s own forces and keeps factories and skilled workers busy between domestic orders.
Exports also create long-term strategic influence. A country that fields Indian missiles or radars becomes tied to India for spares, upgrades, training and maintenance for decades. Arms sales, therefore, are an instrument of foreign policy as much as trade.
The strongest evidence of the shift is in complete weapon systems.
In 2025-26, defence PSUs such as Hindustan Aeronautics, Bharat Electronics and Bharat Dynamics recorded exports of ₹21,071 crore, up 151%, overtaking the private sector’s ₹17,353 crore.
But the annual figure remains volatile because a handful of large deliveries can swing the total sharply.
The BrahMos deal with the Philippines is the clearest example. In 2022, Manila signed a $375-million contract for three shore-based BrahMos batteries. India airlifted the systems between 2024 and early 2026, and the Philippine Marines unveiled their first battery in November 2025.
Manila is now seeking up to nine more batteries, while India has offered an extended-range variant. Vietnam has also signed for BrahMos, according to Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh, while talks with Indonesia are in their final stages. If those deals materialise, BrahMos could become New Delhi’s calling card across the South China Sea region.
Armenia has emerged as another important customer. Yerevan has signed close to $2 billion in Indian weapons since 2020, including Akash air-defence systems, Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launchers, ATAGS 155 mm howitzers, Swathi weapon-locating radars, MArG artillery systems and anti-drone systems. The breadth of the purchases matters: India is no longer selling a single niche product but an expanding portfolio of battlefield systems.
The policy push behind the transformation has been deliberate. The Defence Production and Export Promotion Policy of 2020 established export ambitions, while successive “positive indigenisation lists” restricted imports and forced greater domestic production.
The FDI limit was eased to 74% through the automatic route and 100% with government approval. The iDEX initiative supported start-ups and MSMEs, an online authorisation system shortened clearance timelines, and defence corridors in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu created manufacturing clusters. By 2025-26, the registered exporter base had risen to 145 firms.
Operation Sindoor in May 2025 provided another potential advantage, combat validation. Systems including BrahMos, Akash and Akashteer were put to the test, giving Indian manufacturers something valuable in the global arms market battlefield credibility.
But one inconvenient fact remains.
India is still the world’s second-largest arms importer. SIPRI estimates that it accounted for 8.2% of global arms imports during 2021-25, behind only Ukraine. Its share of global arms exports remains below 1%. A substantial portion of the record export figure is also made up of components and sub-assemblies rather than complete Indian platforms.
The dependence is being reshaped, not eliminated. Russia’s share of Indian arms imports has fallen from around 70% a decade ago to below 40%, with France and Israel filling much of the gap. Many systems marketed as Indian still rely on imported engines, semiconductors and critical sub-systems.
The Tejas Mk-1A is the cautionary example: delayed GE Aerospace F404 engine supplies have held up deliveries, highlighting the vulnerability of an industry that has yet to control every critical link in its supply chain.
India also trails established exporters on financing, after-sales support and delivery timelines. Buyers weigh those factors as heavily as price. That is why the real test lies ahead.
India has broken through in missiles, artillery and air defence, with BrahMos, Pinaka, ATAGS and Akash already finding foreign customers. The unfinished task is the leap to big-ticket platforms—fighters, helicopters and warships—sold and supported for decades. Whether ₹50,000 crore becomes a realistic milestone or merely another target will depend on that transition.
The export boom is real.
But strategic autonomy will be measured not by how much India sells, but by how much of what it sells—and buys—it can ultimately make itself.