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tonnes of hazelnut exports from September 2017 through August 2018 recorded.
"Around 46,000 tonnes of hazelnut were exported in a month [September 2019]," Dursun Oguz Gursoy was quoted as saying, speaking at the world's largest food fair, Anuga 2019, in Cologne, Germany. "If we continue with this pace, we can export 310,000 tonnes of hazelnuts by the end of 2019-2020 season."
The exporters’ union has forecast 800,000 tonnes of hazelnut production in Turkey between September 2018 and August 2019, thanks to good yield.
Last August, flash floods devastated the Black Sea region, where most Turkish hazelnuts are grown.
Turkey has 179,893 acres of hazelnut trees and produces between 500,000 and 900,000 tons of hazelnuts annually, the union said.
"Unfortunately, today Turkey sells 57% of its hazelnuts in the natural form and the rest is sold in processed form. We need to change this rate. If we sell hazelnuts in processed form—such as chocolate, pastry and biscuits—we will be able to provide $5-6bn in return to our country in the long run," Gursoy reportedly said.
9.1.7 TMT sector news
Turkish consumers spent some €1.8bn on smartphones in the first half of this year, research from GfK has shown.
Smartphones with dual cameras to produce higher-quality photographs were the most popular models among Turkish consumers, accounting for some 50% of all sales.
Smartphone sales in Turkey showed a 47% increase on an annual basis in January-July, the data also showed, which also concluded that smartphone sales globally reached €210bn in the first half of 2019.
According to the latest data from Turkish telecom watchdog BTK, the number of mobile phone users in Turkey increased by 2.5% on an annual basis to stand at 80.9mn in the first quarter of 2019 (with the data not identifying individuals who have more than one mobile phone account), which translated to a penetration rate of 98.7%. The number of mobile internet users jumped 6% to 60.4mn people.
Revenues of the local electronic communications sector exhibited a 12% y/y increase to Turkish lira (TRY) 15.4bn in January-March this year, the data summary also stated.
Data released in May showed that Samsung was the largest seller of smartphones in Turkey, followed by Huawei. Apple was the third most popular brand. Huawei’s market share in Turkey, which was only 3.2% back in 2017, jumped to 29.7% in March this year.
80 TURKEY Country Report October 2019 www.intellinews.com