With its original and innovative products grabbing local and international attention, Turkish defense contractor ASELSAN posted an 88.89 percent increase in profits and has doubled its market value since the beginning of the year. ASELSAN, one of the leading companies in Turkey's high technology and defense industry, has recently shown a remarkable performance on the stock market as well as success in its fields of operation, increasing its value on the Borsa Istanbul at a time when the BIST 100 index is breaking records. The free float rate of ASELSAN, which has been traded in Istanbul since 1990, was at 15.30 percent. ASELSAN shares positively diverged from other stocks traded in Istanbul in 2016, as it did in previous years. While the BIST 100 index brought 9 percent to its investors throughout the year, ASELSAN saw a 51 percent profit for investors. The company shares saw the lowest level at TL 8.38 ($2.37) and highest at TL 12.71 last year. Having reached $12.7 billion in market value at the end of the last year, the company closed 2016 as the 16th most valuable company listed on the stock exchange.

Combined with the BIST 100 index's upward trend for an uninterrupted seven-and-a-half months, the company both increased its value and brought profit to its investors. ASELSAN shares have been among the most profitmaking and traded shares for a number of days. The share price of the company saw TL 23.98 at yesterday's close. The turnover of the company has reached 88.89 percent since the beginning of the year. With these developments, the market value of ASELSAN has reached about TL 24 billion. The company thus found itself in the ninth place among the most valuable companies.

ASELSAN undertook many new projects in and outside the country last year with the technological developments and solutions it has developed. The economic size of ASELSAN's ongoing projects increased by 44 percent in 2016 compared to the previous year, while the company also received orders worth $6.2 billion.

In the first half of the year, the company undertook a number of new projects and signed contracts with the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, Defense Technologies Engineering and Trade Inc. (STM), BMC, Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), Prime Ministry Undersecretariat of Treasury Central Finance and Contracts Unit (CFCU), Nurol Makina, OTOKAR and a handful of foreign customers.

Under these contracts, ASELSAN is working on projects making guidance kits, electronic warfare systems, mobile surveillance vehicles, SARP-DUAL Remote Commanded Weapon Systems, SARP Remote Commanded Weapon Systems, commando modernization electro-optic system supplies, helicopter platform requirements, modernization of M60T tanks and ASELPOD Electro Optical Targeting System integration.

The company achieved significant growth with orders received during the six-month period, valued at a total of TL 459 million.