Market Brief: Pakistan’s Loitering Munitions Needs Quwa Premium

The May 2025 conflict between Pakistan and India, which saw the first large-scale, reciprocal use of loitering munitions (LMs), has reshaped Pakistan’s defence procurement priorities. 

Acknowledging a diminished conventional conflict threshold in South Asia, Pakistan’s military leadership is now driven by a strategic imperative to rapidly expand and diversify its LM inventory. 

This creates a substantial and immediate market opportunity for international LM manufacturers and solution providers. 

While Pakistan possesses a growing portfolio of indigenous LM designs (from tactical FPVs to miniature air-launched cruise missiles), its current domestic industrial capacity for scalable manufacturing is still insufficient to meet the urgency and volume of the new requirements. 

Consequently, near-term procurement will heavily rely on imports, with a strong and explicit preference emerging for solutions that offer comprehensive pathways to local manufacturing, technology transfer, and potentially joint development. 

The potential scale is considerable, aiming for a large stockpile to effectively deter and, if necessary, mount a robust, symmetrical response to regional adversarial threats, including the ability to rapidly replenish stocks during sustained operations.