Turkey’s automobile and light commercial vehicle market grew by 72% in the January-May period compared to the previous year, official data showed Wednesday.
According to data from the Automotive Distributors Association (ODD), the sector sold 314,882 units during the first five months of 2021, a marked improvement over the 183,095 units sold in the first five months of last year.
Automobile sales increased by 69.2% year-on-year in the five months this year to 247,977, while light commercial vehicle sales jumped by 83% to 66,905 units.
In May, a total of 54,734 vehicles were sold. The figure, which was 32,235 in May 2020, revealed that the automobile and light commercial vehicle market grew by 69.8% in May alone.
May automobile sales, when compared to the same month of the previous year, increased by 72.1% to 43,138 while the light commercial vehicle sales increased by 61.9% to 11,596.
According to the average sales figures for the last 10 years in May, however, this year’s automobile and light commercial vehicle market sales shrank by 20.7%, with an 18.2% drop in the automobile market and a 28.6% drop in the light commercial vehicle market.
Vehicles in the A (minicompact), B (subcompact) and C (compact) segments with low tax rates constituted 85.8% of the overall automobile market.
Compact cars had a share of 55.5% with 137,711 units while subcompacts held a 29.6% share with 73,364.
When evaluated according to body types, it was revealed that the most preferred body type in the automobile market was sedans with a share of 41.6% and 103,259 units sold.
SUVs and hatchbacks followed sedans with a 33.9% share and 83,949 sales, and with a 22.5% share and 55,760 sales respectively.
In the first five months of the year, a total of 157,822 gasoline-powered cars were sold accounting for a 63.6% share, which was followed by diesel cars with a share of 23.6% and sold units of 58,445.
Hybrid cars’ share in the total market was 7.8% and a total of 19,457 hybrid cars were sold in the first five months. Autogas (also known as liquified petroleum gas or LPG) car sales recorded a share of 4.7% and 11,636 units. Meanwhile, some 617 electric cars were also sold in the market in the January-May period.
In terms of engine volume, sales of cars under 1600cc increased by 61.4% to a share of 90.4%, sales of cars in the 1600-2000cc range increased by 4.8% to a share of 1.2% and sales of cars over 2000cc increased by 143.5% to a share of 0.3%.
According to the emission levels of the automobile market, cars between 100-120 g/km had a share of 36.8% with 91,330 units, and automobiles between 120-140 g/km had a share of 32.3% with 80,080 units. The measurement of g/km shows how many grams of carbon dioxide a car generates per kilometer driven.