In the first half of this year, sales of passenger cars and commercial vehicles in Turkey decreased by 24.85 percent year on year to 286,861 units, according to the statistics released by the Turkish Automotive Distributors Association (ODD). In the given period, domestic sales of passenger cars in Turkey decreased by 22.71 percent to 225,773 units, while sales of commercial vehicles fell by 31.85 percent to 61,088 units, both on year-on-year basis.
Meanwhile, in June this year domestic sales of passenger cars and commercial vehicles decreased by 18.8 percent year on year and increased by 3.51 percent month on month to 60,163 units. In the given month, domestic sales of passenger cars in the country decreased by 18.89 percent year on year to 47,278 units and increased by 1.94 percent month on month, while sales of commercial vehicles fell by 18.48 percent year on year to 12,885 units and were up 9.73 percent month on month.
According to the ODD's report, the main reasons for the contraction of the Turkish domestic passenger car and commercial vehicle market in the first half of the current year were:
- Increase in strength of dollar and interest rates
- Increase in special consumption taxes on automobiles
- Credit restrictions by Turkey's banking regulation and supervision agency
- Decline in private sector investments
On the other hand, for the second half of the current year, the issues which are expected to affect the Turkish domestic automotive market are:
- Presential elections in August
- Macroeconomic precautions
- Turkish central bank's contractionary monetary policy
- Geopolitical conditions
- Monetary policies of the US and the European central banks