Turkey Pays 176 Million Dollars a Day in Freight Payments for Road Transportation
In Turkey, which has the largest road transportation volume in Europe, 176 million dollars in freight payments are made in road transportation in one day. 85% of the trucks in our country are privately owned. About 550 thousand of the 930 thousand trucks on the roads carry commercial freight. About 60 thousand of these are trucks (flour mill trucks, fuel tankers, etc.) owned by the producers themselves, which are mostly short-distance, milk-run, etc. trucks operating on closed routes. The remaining ones serve as public, Turkish Armed Forces, excavation, concrete, rescuer/crane, etc. trucks.
There is more money in road transportation in a day than there is in e-commerce. According to the data of the e-Commerce Information Platform managed by the Ministry of Trade, in 2022, the e-commerce volume in our country increased by 109% compared to the previous year and reached 800.7 billion TL, and according to this data, approximately 132 million dollars were spent in e-commerce per day. The 176 million dollars of freight payments made in one day in road transportation is more than the daily return figure in e-commerce.
In the First 7 Months of 2023, Domestic Transportation Market Shrunk by 15%
In Turkey, an average of 400 thousand trucks receive FTL (full truck) loads per day. Approximately 100 thousand of these are regular line cargoes such as short distance milk-run (port-factory). Dr. Akın Arslan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tırport, noted that Turkey’s road transport traffic has decreased by around 15% compared to December 2022, stating that there are two important reasons for this and said the following 1-There is a noticeable decline in production. Although some of them continue with the same volume of production, they prefer to store the product for 2-3 months before putting it on the market. (The expectation of a price increase due to high inflation increases stockpiling) 2- 1/3 of the trucks on the road have to return empty without taking any cargo. High diesel prices force individual truck owners to return with a return load. The trucker pushes if necessary, waits for 3-4 more days and does not want to return empty.
Freight Increased by 30% in the First 7 Months in 2023
Commenting on TIRPORT Insights data, TIRPORT President Dr. Akın Arslan said that freight rates increased by 30% in the first 7 months of 2023. According to July data from TIRPORT Insights, a truck carrying FTL transportation travels an average of 455 km per day. The average freight price has reached 15 thousand TL. Freight has increased by 25-35% on some routes since the beginning of the year. The average freight payment in Turkey is around 176 million dollars a day. The annual transportation market volume is over 50 billion dollars and the logistics sector size is over 100 billion dollars. On the storage side, there is an annual volume of 7-8 billion dollars.
Logistics Companies to Become Digital Forwarders
Turkey’s largest logistics company has only a 0.7% share of this pie. The market is highly decentralized. New generation digital forwarders such as Tırport, which provides solutions to more than 100 thousand individual trucks through its digital platform, seem to be able to take a market share of more than 5% in the market alone. Producing real-time, location-based, smart logistics solutions for its customers and supporting intermodal solutions within the same platform, Tırport continues to digitalize and transform the logistics industry on a global scale in 14 countries and 8 languages.
A Truck Invoices an Average of 200 Thousand TL a Month
There is more money in the transportation sector than in e-commerce. There are nearly 400 thousand individual truck owners in our country. On average, they bill between 150-300 thousand TL per month. They are in the top 1% of SMEs. Banks, fintechs and factoring companies ignore this audience. Individual truck owners are the largest mass occupational group in Turkey, consisting of approximately 500 thousand SMEs, with an average monthly bill of 200 thousand TL. The daily volume of 176 million dollars in the market is larger than the volume of e-commerce in Turkey. Individual truck owners, tire shops, service centers and truck brands do not take enough care of them. There is a huge trade inside. 176 million dollars a day is just the freight side of the business. In addition, more than 40 thousand tractor/trucks and more than 10 thousand semi-trailers are sold annually. In Turkey, more than 250 thousand trucks change hands in the second hand and second hand traffic is more than 6 times higher than the zero sales figure.
This news was published in Lojiport and Dünya Newspaper.