SAHA EXPO 2026 Opens Its Doors at the İstanbul Expo Center
SAHA EXPO 2026, one of the major gatherings of the defence, aerospace and space industry, was held at the İstanbul Expo Center. The fair displayed the Turkish defence industry’s current products and technologies across land, naval, air and space domains.
What sets SAHA EXPO apart from other fairs
Among defence fairs held in Turkey, IDEF proceeds largely along the axis of prime contractors and official delegations, while SAHA EXPO stands out for a structure that puts the subcontractor network at its centre. Because most of the chain producing the final product in defence industry consists of small and medium-sized suppliers, such events serve to bring prime contractor and supplier into the same hall.
The role of fairs in exports
Fairs create a shared calendar in which months of negotiation are concluded. Contracts worth a total of 8 billion dollars were announced as signed within the event’s first three days. To assess what that figure means, the sector’s annual data is needed: in 2025 total defence exports including services were announced as 10.5 billion dollars, and new contracts signed as 17.8 billion dollars.
Why the subcontractor network is critical
A significant share of the cost of a missile or an armoured vehicle arises not on the prime contractor’s assembly line but in subcomponent supply. Finding suppliers for items such as guidance electronics, precision mechanical parts, special alloys and wiring harnesses directly determines production capacity. At a time when order volumes are growing rapidly, expanding that network becomes essential for meeting delivery schedules.
Industrial participation and offset
In international procurement processes, buyer countries require part of the systems they purchase to be produced in their own industry. Meeting such industrial participation obligations depends on the breadth of the supplier pool the prime contractor can work with. Fairs serve to make that pool visible both at home and abroad.
Foreign delegation traffic
Bilateral meetings are reported to have proceeded at an intense pace at the event, attended by numerous domestic and foreign delegations. It should be borne in mind that first contact in defence exports is mostly established at fairs, but the road to a contract includes technical evaluation, trials and export permit stages.
Assessment
The fair’s growing number of participants shows that company diversity in Turkish defence industry is increasing. The measure of a fair’s success, however, will be the rate at which signed agreements turn into firm orders rather than visitor and exhibitor figures. That rate becomes visible only in the order backlog data companies disclose in the following months.
