In Turkey, the automotive production has started with assembly line productions of Renault and Fiat groups with local partners in 1970s. Bursa-Kocaeli-Sakarya triangle has become the automotive cluster of Turkey with an increased capacity in component production. Renault Group has partnered with OYAK Holding (Army Association for Retired Personnel) where they both share the production and marketing/sales facilities. In factory, Renault Group has 51 per cent share, whereas in its sales company (MAIS) OYAK Holding has 51 per cent share. The two partners have agreed to continue their partnership for another 27 years on 26 June 2018 in France.
TOFAS Fabrika was founded of the partnership between Fiat and the biggest Turkish conglomerate Koc Group. While Renault is strong in passenger car segment, Tofas Fabrika has a balanced presence in both passenger cars and light commercial vehicles segment.
Another manufacturer, Ford Otosan, is another partnership between Ford Group and again Turkish Koc Group. Ford Otosan is market leader in light commercial vehicles segment market and also focused on export in light commercial vehicles segment. Apart from these, Dogus Otomotiv as the importer of Volkswagen group comes ahead. Even though the total production in the sector is more than total imports, the passenger car segment has an overwhelmingly (historically around 65 per cent) import oriented.
In 2018, total Turkish motor vehicle production declined by 8.6 per cent year on year to 1.55 million units. Yet exports volume somewhat maintained last years' position slightly 1 per cent decrease to 1.32 million units. Total domestic market retail sales of passenger car and light commercial vehicles segments have declined by 35.1 per cent year on year and reached 620,900 units in 2018.
Renault was the market leader in 2018. Renault, manufacturing passenger cars at its Bursa plant, was the leader at the domestic automotive (light vehicle) market in 2018, with a combined market share of 18.6 per cent.
Being the distributor of all Volkswagen Group brands including Seat, Skoda, Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini and Bentley as well as Volkswagen, Dogus Otomotiv ranked the 2nd player holding 18.1 per cent market share.
Both Dogus Otomotiv and Renault have by far leading positions at the passenger car segment. However, in 2018, Fiat Egea of TOFAS had a 7.5 per cent market share, earning around 90bps over the previous year while maintaining its title as the best selling passenger car in Turkey third year in a row.
In the light commercial vehicle segment, Ford Otosan and Tofas are the major players, controlling more than half of the market. Thanks to relatively new models, Ford has been well ahead of Tofas (FCA) in terms of market share development in light commercial vehicle segment since 2014. Being local manufacturers of light commercial vehicles in Turkey, both have competitive advantage on pricing over importers. Hyundai, Toyota and Honda are other players that opened their manufacturing facilities in Turkey. Yet, their marketing shares stay way behind the first five big player.