Turkey’s auto market shrinks 16.9 percent

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

The Turkish automotive market shrank 16.9 percent in the January-July period of 2012 when compared to the same period of 2011.

According to Automotive Distributors Association (ODD), Turkey’s total automotive market dropped 16.9 percent from total sales of 484,916 to 402,936 in the January-July period of 2012. Sales in the automobile and light commercial vehicles market dropped 1.2 percent from 63,044 to 62,304 in July 2012 when compared to July 2011.

Automobile sales in January-July 2012 dropped 13.3 percent from 333,264 to 289,021 in the same period of 2011. The light commercial vehicles market dropped 24.9 percent from 151,652 to 113,915 in the January-July period of 2012 when compared to the same period of 2011, while light commercial vehicles dropped 9 percent to 17,773 in July 2012 year-over-year.

However, automobile sales in July 2012 increased 2.3 percent to 44,531 when compared to July 2011. The improvement in July figure was due to to lower inflation and interest rates, according to analysts.

The association sounded hopeful citing data from LMC Automotive. “Global automotive market is estimated to grow 5.5 percent year-on-year in 2012 to reach 82.8 million based on the second quarter data, according to the LMC automotive,” the report said.