(July 8): Turkey’s US$37 billion state-run defence contractor Aselsan Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret AS said international orders have doubled in the past year on the back of demand fuelled by the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
“In the last three years, every year we had twice the larger international order,” Aselsan CEO Ahmet Akyol said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Tuesday, on the sidelines of the Nato summit in the Turkish capital, Ankara. There were US$2 billion worth of international orders last year, up from US$500 million in 2023, Akyol said.
Aselsan produces radar equipment, drone components and air-defence systems and is Turkey’s most valuable publicly traded company in market capitalisation terms. Its revenue is forecast to increase by 10% this year.
Defence spending is a central theme at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit this week. With US President Donald Trump criticising European allies for not doing enough, alliance members signed defence deals on Tuesday worth more than US$50 billion — a flurry of spending likely to support Aselsan and other Turkish defence contractors whose products are increasingly integrated into Nato’s shared defence capabilities.
Turkey’s growing defence industry has put the country in pole position to help Europe fill its security gaps. About 56% of Turkish arms sales went to the US, Europe and other Western allies last year. Foreign sales for Turkish defence companies have quadrupled since 2020.
Aselsan’s stock rose about 220% last year and has gained another 64% since the start of this year.
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Asset manager Ninety One plc said in June that it had increased its Aselsan holdings, which now occupy one of the largest positions in the firm’s US$12.5 billion portfolio in emerging market equity strategy.
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