Carmakers produce 607,000 vehicles in five months

ISTANBUL

Production in the auto industry has declined by 1.4 percent from a year ago in the first five months of 2024 to 606,905 units, data from the Automotive Manufacturers’ Association (OSD) have shown.

Companies’ passenger car production, however, rose 1.5 percent in January-May compared with the same period of 2023 to around 391,000 units.

Commercial vehicles output was down 7 percent with light commercial vehicle production falling 6 percent year-on-year in the first five months of 2024.

From January to May, a total of 491,482 vehicles were sold in Türkiye, pointing to an annual increase of 5.4 percent.

The passenger car market expanded more than 10 percent in the first five months, showed OSD data. Some 375,000 passenger cars were sold on the local market in the January-May period.

Imported passenger car sales surged 16 percent from a year ago, said OSD, adding that the sales of domestically produced passenger cars were down 2 percent.

The share of imported passenger cars in the local market was 71.6 percent in the first five months of 2024, while the share of imported light commercial vehicles was 67.5 percent.

Earlier this month, the government decided to impose a 40 percent additional tariff on imported fuel and hybrid passenger vehicles from China to take effect in early July in a bid to protect local producers.

Carmakers generated a total of $15.09 billion in export revenues during this period, up 3 percent from the first five months of 2023. Passenger car exports, however, declined 0.8 percent annually to $4.37 billion.

In euro terms, the industry’s export revenues amounted to 13.9 billion euros, up 2.3 percent year-on-year, with passenger car exports falling 1.4 percent to 4 billion euros.

Carmakers delivered 417,826 vehicles to foreign markets in the first five months of 2024, marking a 0.6 percent increase from a year ago. Deliveries of passenger cars, on the other hand, rose by 2.1 percent year-on-year to 269,349 units.

Ford Otosan was the largest producer of vehicles. In the first five months of the year, the company manufactured more than 167,000 vehicles, corresponding to a 26.6 percent share in the industry’s total output.

Oyak Renault ranked second with 140,799 units, followed by Hyundai Assan at 104,127 units.

Toyota produced 90,177 vehicles in January-May, while TOFAŞ’s output amounted to 84,823 units.

The capacity usage for in the automotive industry was 75 percent in January-May.

In May alone, the industry’s production fell 3.7 percent from a year ago to 131,956 with passenger car output rising 1.2 percent to 91,823 units.