February boom marks end of Turkey car market slump

With a year-on-year sales increase of 58% in February, the Turkish car market ends a slump that lasted 18 months. Vehicle sales totalled 55,331 units. The main brands to benefit from the boom were Ford, BMW and Jeep. The boom follows relatively flat January sales, resulting in a year-to-date sales figure of 88,031 units, or a 30% increase over the first two months of 2014.

Volkswagen maintained its pole position with February sales of 9,517 units. But although impressive on its own, VW's year-on-year sales growth of 32.1% was dwarfed by Ford's surge of 89.4%, earning it the second place, with a total for February of 7,508 units. Ford now has a market share of 13.6%, edging closer to VW's 17.2%.

Sales for third-placed Fiat increased 28.3% (to 6,287 units), while Renault held on to its fourth place despite a 6.1% drop (to 5,854 units). The fastest grower was Jeep, up 436.1% (to 281 units) and BMW, up 189.7% (to 1,536 units).

Best-selling car group was Volkswagen (24.1%), followed by Renault-Nissan (17.6%) and Ford (13.6%). The most popular models were the Fiat Linea (2,412 units), the Toyota Corolla (2,132 units – up 157.5%) and the VW Passat (1,870 units).