Auto sales reach record 1.23 million last year
ISTANBUL
Türkiye’s auto market expanded more than 57 percent last year from 2022, with passenger cars and light commercial vehicle sales hitting an all-time high of 1.23 million.
From January to December 2023, a total of 967,342 passenger cars were sold in Türkiye, marking a robust 63.2 percent increase from the previous year.
Light commercial vehicle sales rose more than 39 percent to 265,294.
The rising star of the market last year was electric vehicles (EVs). EV sales soared 833 percent in 2023 compared with 2022 to reach 72,179 units, according to the data from the Automotive Distributors and Mobility Association (ODMD).
In December alone, 12,078 EVs were sold in the country, pointing to a remarkable 695 percent year-on-year increase, led by Togg, Türkiye’s first indigenous EV company.
In the month, Togg delivered 6,011 vehicles, which brought the number of cars the company sold in the whole of 2023 to 19,583.
U.S. carmaker Tesla sold 12,150 vehicles in 2023 in Türkiye, with sales in December alone standing at 550 units.
Türkiye’s electric vehicle market is expected to continue to grow at a fast pace well into 2024, with EV sales forecast to reach 100,000 units, according to experts.
December sales
The auto market grew 38 percent in the final month of last year as the combined sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles hit 158,653 units.
The year-on-year increase in passenger cars slowed from nearly 40 percent in November to 37.7 percent in December.
Last month, 158,653 passenger cars were sold, which was higher than the 115,000 sales recorded in the previous month.
The slowdown in the pace of annual growth in passenger car sales started in August. The year-on-year sales eased from 118 percent in July to 85 percent in August, further losing pace in September (55.9 percent) and October (55.4 percent).
Representatives from the industry expect auto sales to decline between 35 percent to 40 percent in 2024.
Vehicle sales will be around 750,000 units next year, where they were in 2020, they predicted.
Bülent Kılıçer, senior assistant general manager at Honda Türkiye, said last month that difficulties with accessing loans and prohibitively high prices of brand-new cars would be the main factors hindering sales.
The automotive industry’s export performance was also strong last year, with shipments to foreign markets increasing 13 percent from 2022 to surpass $35 billion, corresponding to 15.8 percent of Türkiye’s overall export revenues last year.
