Chapter 3278: Sudden Changes (19)
However, even if they relied on the Hurricane Group, the fact that the Group had taken a huge share of the profits on many battlefields would inevitably offend the interests of other countries.
It should be known that Hurricane Group had intercepted the military firearms business of superpowers like M Nation more than once. Given that each order was worth billions of US dollars, when acc.u.mulated, the amount of money was enough to buy an entire country.
Hence, Hurricane Group was blacklisted by many countries.
In the past, many countries joined forces to restrict the Hurricane Group, and signed a “missile non-proliferation treaty”.
Included in the treaty was an extensive list of weapons for which peddling was not permitted.
Moreover, they made an agreement to ban Hurricane Group and refrained from making any deals with them.
Military firearms is a lucrative business, and it’s not rare to make profits of more than five times. However, it’s a very niche market. Many developed countries have their own military factories, and the purchasing power of their military is limited to the domestic military factories. As for poor countries, they simply can’t afford it.
Most warring countries are poor and needy, so the major markets are concentrated in developing countries.
For example, Lockheed Martin, which came second to the Hurricane Group in the firearms trade, their most popular product was the F-22 and the Boeing 747. Their main market was domestic, but the M Nation military was a global team.
The real boss behind such a corporation was M Nation’s government.
For a highly lucrative business like this, most countries would not allow private corporations to take profit.
Moreover, if a civilian corporation had control over weapons manufacturing, wouldn’t it be the greatest threat to the government?!
Back then, the Hurricane Group’s first bucket of gold had been made in Africa. Gong Shaoying had received a batch of orders from Africa, but Africa was poor and could not afford to pay a high price for weapons. However, the mineral and oil storage in Africa was extremely abundant.
In exchange for a long-term deal with the Hurricane Group, the President of South Africa gave the Group the rights to ten years of oil mining.
The profits from oil were definitely considerable! Moreover, the Gong clan was originally a s.h.i.+pping empire, with this order, they obtained ten times the total value of the order.
Next, he placed his focus in the Middle East and started to expand the market step by step. He worked hard to develop more advanced weapons. Later on, he became an unshakable overlord and finally gained a foothold in this compet.i.tive market.
On top of these, Gong Shaoying was a shrewd businessman. He knew that the market was limited, so he fought and won on the basis of volume.
For the same grenade that Lockheed Martin sold for USD 5, he sold for USD 3.
Although the difference per unit was a mere 2 USD, when transacted in bulk this came up to be a large amount.
Low prices at large quant.i.ties attracted a large number of countries to buy from them to fill their inventories.
In order to compete with Hurricane Group, Lockheed Martin also lowered their prices, but eventually found that Hurricane Group had greater market access for the same $3.
Many of the weapons produced by Lockheed Martin were not only complicated but also limited in power.
However, the weapons produced by Hurricane Group were simple to use and had an advantage in terms of control. Whether it was in terms of range, fire control, or human-centricity, they had a huge advantage.
In terms of power, the weapons produced by Lockheed Martin were relatively inferior. Therefore, even if the prices were the same, they did not have much advantage in most countries.
Hurricane Group’s wealth, however, was not mainly dependent on military firearms.