Sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles across Turkey rose 12.5% year-on-year in June to 79,819 vehicles, the Automotive Distributors Association (ODD) said on Friday.

The year-on-year growth rate marked a slowdown from the extremely high levels in previous months, as the base effect from last year's pandemic-related slowdown evaporated. However, this figure still showed that June 2021 was the month with the highest sales in the last four years.

The association forecast that sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles would amount to between 775,000 and 825,000 this year.

Sales last year stood at 773,000.

Passenger cars accounted for 78.6% of the sales with 310,325 units, a 52.4% rise from the same period last year.

A total of 84,376 light commercial vehicles were sold from January to June, up 67.2% on an annual basis.

Passenger car sales hit 62,348 units last month, up 9.3%, while light commercial vehicle sales reached 17,471, rising 25.6% on an annual basis.