In the first three months this year, sales of passenger cars and commercial vehicles in Turkey declined by 24.46 percent year on year to 115,272 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 21.92 percent to 89,347 units, while sales of commercial vehicles fell by 32.08 percent to 25,925 units, both on year-on-year basis.
Meanwhile in March this year, domestic sales of passenger cars and commercial vehicles decreased by 30.82 percent year on year and increased by 35.86 percent month on month. In the given month, domestic sales of passenger cars in the country decreased by 26.98 percent to 37,812 units, while sales of commercial vehicles fell by 42.5 percent to 9,769 units, both on year-on-year basis.
According to the ODD's report, in the first three months of the current year the main reasons for the contraction of the Turkish domestic passenger car and commercial vehicle market 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
- Decrease in the consumer confidence index
- Decline in economic activity, private sector investments and in domestic consumption
On the other hand, for the whole of the current year, the issues which are expected to affect the Turkish domestic automotive market are stated as:
- Election process
- Macroeconomic precautions
- Turkish central bank's contractionary monetary policy
- Decrease of acceleration of growth in developing economies
- Decrease in asset purchases and global wage incentives
- Narrowing of financial possibilities in international markets