Turkey's home appliance sales show modest rise

Turkey’s home appliance sales show modest rise

Turkey's Home Appliance Manufacturers Association data show that the country's domestic home appliance sales rose 3% year on year to 392'476 units in April. A pickup in domestic sales – spurred on by refrigerator sales, which increased 17% year on year – helped cumulative sales increase 1% year on year to 1.35 million units for the first four months of 2005. The results through the April are on par with economists' predictions of a temporary slowdown through the first three months of 2005. After a year on year contraction in March, year-to-date domestic sales showed a modest rise in April thanks to 6% month-on-month gain. Dishwashers and ovens continued to be high growth product categories during the first four months of 2005. Economists expect this trend to continue throughout the rest of the year as dishwashers have the lowest penetration rate and ovens are relatively affordable to replace. Exports rose only 3% year on year to 2.24 million units in the first four months of the year. Dishwashers (21%) and washing machines (16%) held the highest market shares in export volume.