Turkey: 750,000 cars sold in 2011
Turkish prime minister Erdoğan hardly fails to remind his audience each and every time that the GDP in Turkey has well exceeded USD 10,000 and the new targert is 20,000 per annum.
Judging on the figures published by daily VATAN a short while ago, it is not possible to deny this comment. The reason being if people did not not have enough money they would not be able to buy so mnay cars – not to forget a substantial quantity of said vehicles are sold abroad each year.
The question then is, why is everybody complaining they can not make a comfortable living in this country with their cureent salaries, or at least they are having real difficulty to make two ends meet each month.
Having heard this one may think it has to do with exaggeration and all. This is true to a great extent, most certainly.
But we need to point to a very special case unique for Turkey and this is although people might not be making a lot of money on individual basis, there are several members in thye same house that go to work to bring in money. So it adds up to bring down their costs and put them in a suitable situation to afford an average car – and in fact on installment basis.
This is one of the most important factors to help the domestic automotive sector grow so fast in terms of sales.
Editor
BUSINESS TURKEY TODAY
To verify all this the figures published in daily Vatan go as follows;
Turkey car sales rise to record-high in 2010.
As Turkey’s economy recovers, automotive sales have risen from 557,126 units in 2009 to a record high of 750,000 units in 2010, according to a report from its Vatan newspaper.
Sales were also boosted with the decline in interest rates.
Ibrahim Aybar, head of Renault Mais, told the newspaper that in December 2010, Turkish automotive sales in December increased to between 140,000 and 150,000 vehicles.
Renault Mais is a 42-year-old joint venture of Renault and the Turkey-based Oyak.
Turkey’s automotive industry is composed primarily of manufacturers Ford Otosan, a joint venture of local conglomerate Koc Holding AS with U.S. carmaker Ford Motor Co., and Tofas, a joint venture of Koc and Italy’s Fiat S.p.A.
