Turkish automotive market hit by drop in light truck sales

ISTANBUL

The number of cars sold in Turkey rose 4 percent year-on-year to reach 26,611 in January, the Automotive Distributors Association (ODD) said on Feb. 2.

Overall automotive sales, including light trucks, however, dropped to 35,076 in the month, a fall of 0.7 from January 2017, the ODD said in a report.

Light truck sales slipped 12 percent to stand at 8,465 during the same period.

In January, nine electric vehicles and 518 hybrid vehicles were sold.

The association expects that at the end of 2018, Turkey’s overall auto sales market will hover between 925,000 and 975,000.

Meanwhile, in 2017, the total number of road motor vehicles in traffic increased by over 1.1 million, 3 percent from the previous year, according to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK).

The total number of road motor vehicles registered in traffic reached 22.2 million by the end of December 2017, TÜİK data showed on Feb. 2.