African Armoured Vehicles: Market Analysis and Regional Requirements

Defence IQ recently conducted a comprehensive study of the global armoured vehicle market based on proprietary survey data and interviews as well as open source information. The African market was considered in great detail and has been reproduced here with relevant updates and revisions.

There is an enduring threat of militant and insurgency operations and a growing complexity of contemporary threats presently causing risks to internal security across Africa. This, coupled with the lack of updated armoured vehicle equipment, programmes and training, has meant that sub-Saharan defence budgets are being focused towards modernisation plans, procurement priorities and indeed the investment and strengthening of local industrial bases to promote stability in Africa.

Sub-Saharan defence budgets are – like many militaries worldwide – cash strapped. Despite this, a number of modernisation programmes and procurement initiatives are valued continent-wide at up to $20 billion over the next decade for armoured and tactical vehicles alone, according to forecasts at the Armoured Vehicles Africa conference in July 2013.

Big national spenders are not confined to one specific continental region, but include Nigeria in the West, Kenya in the East and, unsurprisingly, South Africa. However, the largest armoured vehicle market remains in the North where countries battling Islamist insurgencies are faced with improvised explosives and are working to keep a lid on violent uprisings.

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