After a month of March when Citroën broke a historic sales record, the brand just smashed this record in May when its sales literally exploded to make Turkey, Citroën's second largest market in terms of volume .
At the end of 2022, Citroën announced its desire to make Turkey a key market to ensure the development of its international sales and extend its influence in the countries of the Middle East. The brand set an ambitious goal to bring Turkey into the Top 5 countries where it sells the most vehicles by 2025.
In March 2023, the efforts of Citroën's Turkish team enabled the brand to experience a historic month of sales with more than 5,300 units sold, which crowned a first quarter that had already enabled Turkey to be in the Top 5 main markets for Citroën. But the brand did better and even much better in May to break its record since Citroën sold 8,528 cars in Turkey, making it its second largest market in terms of volume. While the Turkish market saw its sales jump by 70.6%, Citroën sales have exploded by 581%.
The excellent results for May are part of a more than positive trend for the brand since the beginning of the year, when its sales have increased by 130% to more than 24,000 units when the market is up 60.5%. The brand's sales are driven by both passenger cars and utility vehicles, which represent 34% of the brand's sales and have increased by 300% since the start of the year, while the market is showing growth of 130%.
Turkey is an important market for Citroën, which will serve as a base for expanding its influence in Africa and the Middle East, where the brand aims to sell 100,000 cars per year by 2025 and thus contribute to the brand's global sales growth. The results recorded both in May and since the beginning of the year indicate that Citroën is on the right track to succeed in its bet by beating, almost in quick succession, two historic records.
It’s good to see a market where Citroen beats expectations right now. That means their strategy works for mid-income developing markets. Hopefully it will be the same in low income markets such as India and Indonesia. And that makes us impatient to see what their product strategy will be for Europe!