The sale of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles dropped 47.1 percent year-on-year in February, according to a report released by the Automotive Distributers’ Association (ODD).
The overall number of automobiles sold fell from 47,009 in February 2018 to 24,875 in February 2019.
Last month passenger car sales dropped by 46,5 percent over the same period of 2018, totaling 19,205 in comparison to 35,901.
The light commercial vehicle market decreased by 48.9 percent in February 2019 over February 2018, from 11,108 to 5,670.
The market showed a year-on-year decrease of 52 percent over the first two months of 2019.
The Diken news website said on Monday that the turbulence was mainly caused by rising interest rates and inflation, the depreciation of the Turkish lira last year and a sharp decline in consumer confidence.
After reaching a peak of 76.5 percent in October of last year, the slump was slowed down by tax breaks and other measures taken by the Turkish government in anticipation of local elections on March 31.