Energy, automotive firms top list of biggest 500

ISTANBUL

Refiner Tüpraş topped the Istanbul Chamber of Industry’s (İSO) Top 500 industrial enterprises 2018 list with 79 billion Turkish Liras ($13 billion) of production-based sales.

Carmaker Ford ranked second with production-based sales of 31 billion liras, followed by another automaker, Toyota Turkey, as third with 236 billion liras of sales.

Carmaker Oyak-Renault, which ranked fifth in the previous Top 500 ranking, climbed to fourth place with 20.2 billion liras of production-based sales, and Tofaş whose sales amounted to 17.1 billion liras was in the fifth place in the 2018 list.

Combined production-based sales of Turkey’s largest 500 industrial enterprises increased by 34.5 percent to hit 878 billion liras, marking the steepest rise in the past 14 years.

The jump in revenues was mainly due to the rise in the price of products the companies sell and higher export income resulting from the higher exchange rates.

The İSO survey also showed that combined export revenues of the Top 500 enterprises rose by 11.3 percent from the previous year to stand at $71.8 billion in 2018, which was above the 7 percent increase recorded in Turkey’s overall exports last year.

Ford was the largest exporting firm with a $5.7 billion revenue, followed by Toyota with $4.3 billion and Oyak-Renault with $3.4 billion. The export revenues of the largest firm Tüpraş were $2.47 billion.

The share of the top 500 companies’ share in the country’s industry exports stood at 44.5 percent last year.

Combined operating profit of those firms was 107.8 billion liras in 2018, and financial expenses accounted for 88.9 percent of the operating profit of industrial enterprises, up from 49.8 percent a year ago.

The financial liabilities of the Top 500 enterprises exhibited a 35.3 percent increase to reach 328.6 billion liras.