South Korea Defense Market - Size and trends, budget allocation, regulations, key acquisitions, competitive landscape and forecast, 2025-2030

South Korea Defense Market - Size and trends, budget allocation, regulations, key acquisitions, competitive landscape and forecast, 2025-2030

Summary

South Korea Defense Market - Size and trends, budget allocation, regulations, key acquisitions, competitive landscape and forecast, 2025-2030 report provides the market size forecast and the projected growth rate for the next five years. The report covers industry analysis including the key market drivers, emerging technology trends, and major challenges faced by market participants. It also offers insights regarding key factors and government programs that are expected to influence the demand for military platforms over the forecast period.

South Korean defense expenditure has historically been driven by the need to deter aggressive actions by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), henceforth referred to as North Korea. The Republic of Korea (RoK), henceforth referred to as South Korea, has allocated enormous funds to bolster its defense posture against North Korea. Over the last couple of years, the country has tried to reach a peace settlement with North Korea and normalize ties with its primary adversary. The talks collapsed when the North Korean regime cut off all lines of communication with South Korea in June 2020, over the perceived failure of the South Korean regime to prevent expatriate North Korean activists from sneaking anti-regime propaganda leaflets across the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Any hopes of peace have further dwindled since an official statement by North Korean, Ri Son-Gwon, stating that any prospects of peace between South Korea, North Korea, and the US have faded away into a dark nightmare.

The failure of the peace process is compelling South Korea to enhance its defense expenditure and posture against North Korea. Against this backdrop, the country's defense budget recorded $46.2 billion in 2021. However, the defense budget declined to $42.3 billion in 2022. Even though the budget started to improve from 2023 to record $45.6 billion in 2025, it registered a negative CAGR of 0.3%. Over the forecast period, South Korean defense expenditure is anticipated to register a CAGR of 2% over 2026–30 and reach $50.1 billion by 2030. The country's acquisition budget is anticipated to register significant growth. It is projected to reach $11.9 billion in 2030, from $11.7 billion in 2026.

Key Highlights

• Drivers of Defense expenditure include North Korean militarization, Domestic industry.
• Major ongoing procurement program include procurement of KF-21 Boramae, K239 Chunmoo, K55 A1 155mm

Scope

This report offers a detailed analysis of South Korea's defense market, with market size forecasts covering the next five years. It also offers insights into the strategy, security environment and defense market dynamics of the country. Various sections covered in the report are as follows -

Defense Budget Assessment: This chapter covers the defense budgeting process, market size forecasts, drivers of expenditure, and allocation analysis. It also examines key market trends and insights.

Military Doctrine and Security Environment: Detailed analysis of military doctrine, strategic alliances, geopolitical dynamics, and the political, social, and economic factors influencing the security environment.

Market Entry Strategy and Regulations: This section elaborates on essential aspects of procurement policy and market regulations, market entry routes, key defense procurement bodies and major deals.

Market attractiveness and emerging opportunities: It evaluates the attractiveness of various defense sectors, indicating cumulative market value, and highlights the top sectors and defense segments by value in the country.

Defense Platforms Import and Export Dynamics: Provides an understanding of the defense platform imports and exports of the country from 2016 to 2023. Both imports and exports of the country are provided in terms of value ($M) and volume (units), categorized by country and sector.

Defense Platform Acquisitions: It offers an overview of defense platform acquisitions by value. It lists current defense procurement schedules for the major ongoing and planned military platforms that have been formulated in the country and elaborates on the reasons leading to the procurement of the same.

Fleet Size: Outlines the current fleet sizes of the Army, Air Force, and Navy, detailing the year of acquisition, units in service, and the prime contractor for the equipment.

Competitive Landscape: Profiles the main defense companies operating in the country, offering insights into their business overviews, latest contracts, and financial results.

Reasons to Buy

• Determine prospective investment areas based on a detailed trend analysis of the South Korea defense market over the next five years
• Gain in-depth understanding about the underlying factors driving demand for different defense and internal security segments in the South Korea market and identify the opportunities offered.
• Strengthen your understanding of the market in terms of demand drivers, market trends, and the latest technological developments, among others
• Identify the major threats that are driving the South Korea defense market providing a clear picture about future opportunities that can be tapped, resulting in revenue expansion
• Channel resources by focusing on the ongoing programs that are being undertaken by the South Korea government
• Make correct business decisions based on in-depth analysis of the competitive landscape consisting of detailed profiles of the top defense equipment providers in the country. The company profiles also includes information about the key products, alliances, recent contract awarded, and financial analysis, wherever available