With the Mirage III, Dassault set up a multi-purpose assembly line, meaning that different versions corresponding to various military missions could be manufactured on the same line. Production of the Mirage III is divided between Générale Aéronautique Marcel Dassault (GAMD), the prime contractor, and several cooperating companies and subcontractors, including Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Nord (SNCAN), Société Nationale d'Etude et de Construction de Engines d'Aviation (SNECMA), Société des Avions Louis Breguet and Hispano-Suiza.
This policy of sharing production is in line with the principles adopted in 1945 by the aeronautical procurement and production department: competition exists at the level of design offices, not at the production level. The French Air Force received 95 Mirage III Cs, 59 Mirage III Bs, B1s, B2s and BEs (equivalent to the D version for export), 70 Mirage Rs and RDs, 183 Mirage III Es and 50 Mirage 5 Fs, for a total of 457 aircraft. The last aircraft were withdrawn from operational units in 1994.
Thanks to the Mirage III/5/50 family, France has proven that it is a leading industrial nation.
Since 1958, 1,401 Mirage III/5/50s have been built in more than eighty different versions for twenty-one countries around the world and have accumulated more than three million flight hours.