Experts predict Turkish automotive market to face the pressure of exchange rates in 2018

Looking at the data from the first 11 months of 2017, the sector will close the current year with a sales figure of 950-975 thousand vehicles. However experts think there may be a slight decline in number of sales in 2018 due to devaluation of Turkish lira as well as additional tax hikes imposed by the government.

It is observed that the share of fleet sales in total sales has grown in time and some automotive companies focus on fleet sales to secure a certain share in the market. Some companies on the other hand do not prefer to have more than 25-30% of their turnover in fleet sales.

Some other executives in the sector predict the market may shrink by 15 percent in 2018 and the first 6 months of 2018 could be interesting. Moreover due to several uncertainties such as the global conjuncture, interest rates, exchange rates as well as political developments in the region in specific it is even harder to make a statement about the second half of 2018. In any case, provided exchange rates keep same levels 2018 sales figures could be below 2017 sales by 15 percent.