The U.S. Army has been using the Beretta M9 series as the official issued pistols, supplying over 600,000 for over 30 years with a recent contract of supplying 100,000 more M9s. The 9mm pistol has been the official sidearm and seen in many movies, especially in the award-winning "The Hurt Locker. However, the company will need to compete with other companies with the plan of the U.S. Army to upgrade its standard service pistol.

Even if Beretta has an advantage over the competition due to the familiarity of servicemen with its pistols, it expects a stiff fight over the new contract and as such released the Beretta M9A3 Pistol as its offering in this upgrade program.

The Beretta M9A3, whilst still looks the traditional M9 pistol, has more capacity and even more modular than its predecessors. Thus, it can hold two more rounds in its "sand resistant" magazine and more weapons accessories can be mounted easily on it such as suppressors and laser devices.

As explained by Gabriele de Plano, vice president of military marketing and sales for Beretta USA, “After listening closely to the needs of U.S. Army and other Service small arms representatives, we determined the M9, much like its counterpart legacy weapon systems like the M4, M16 and M240, was capable of being upgraded through material and design changes."

“The resulting M9A3 we are offering to the Department of Defense will likely cost less than the current M9, and will answer almost all of the Services’ enhanced handgun requirements.”

The color of the M9A3 will be released in "desert tone" as compared to the previous M9 models which are in black and the color choice was perhaps due to the adoption of the Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP) which is based on the Scorpion W2 pattern that also was the origin of the Multicam pattern.

Expected to be submitting its bid for the Pentagon's "Modular Handgun System" are other well known companies such as Smith & Wesson.
As for those who are expecting a civilian version of the M9A3, Beretta will be putting one on display at the SHOT Show 2015 in Las Vegas this January.