ASELSAN: The Company Behind Türkiye’s Defence Electronics

ASELSAN is Türkiye’s largest defence company and its national defence-electronics house. It is majority-owned by the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation, listed on Borsa İstanbul, and builds the radars, air-defence systems, electronic warfare suites, electro-optics, military communications and guided-munition seekers that sit inside almost every major Turkish platform. In 2025 it reported revenue of about USD 4 billion and a record USD 20.4 billion order backlog; by mid-2026 that backlog had reached USD 23.2 billion. In September 2026 it became the first Turkish company to enter the Defense News Top 40 global defence contractors, ranking 40th.

For an international reader, that last point is the useful one. ASELSAN is no longer a regional supplier that occasionally exports. It is a mid-sized global defence electronics group with a backlog larger than its annual revenue by a factor of five — and with a customer base that is still overwhelmingly Turkish. Both halves of that sentence matter, and this profile covers both.

Who actually owns ASELSAN

ASELSAN’s ownership structure is the first thing that surprises analysts who assume it is a straightforward state enterprise. It is not owned by the Turkish Treasury or by the Ministry of National Defence. Its controlling shareholder is the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation (Türk Silahlı Kuvvetlerini Güçlendirme Vakfı, TSKGV), which holds 74.2% of the shares. The remaining 25.7% trades publicly on Borsa İstanbul.

The foundation model dates from the company’s origins. ASELSAN was established in 1975, in the aftermath of the US arms embargo imposed on Türkiye following the 1974 Cyprus intervention. The embargo exposed how dependent the Turkish military was on foreign tactical radios, and the foundation was the vehicle chosen to build a domestic alternative outside the ordinary state budget cycle. Fifty years later the same institution still controls the company, and the same founding logic — supply security first, commercial return second — still shapes how ASELSAN sets priorities.

There is a governance detail that matters for investors. ASELSAN has a dual share class: only Group A shares may nominate and elect members of the board of directors, and all publicly traded shares are Group B. A minority shareholder therefore buys economic exposure to ASELSAN’s growth, not influence over its board. That is unusual among the listed defence primes that international funds normally compare it against, and it should be priced in rather than discovered later.

The numbers, and what they actually show

ASELSAN reports under Turkish inflation accounting, which makes lira comparisons awkward across years. The dollar figures the company discloses alongside them are the more useful series for an outside reader.

Three things stand out. The first is the book-to-bill ratio of 2.5, meaning ASELSAN signed two and a half dollars of new work for every dollar it recognised as revenue in the first half of 2026. Sustained above 2, that ratio implies the revenue line has years of visible growth ahead of it regardless of what happens to new orders next year.

The second is headcount. ASELSAN added roughly 3,500 people in twelve months, a 26% increase. Defence electronics is an engineering-hours business; that hiring rate is the clearest signal of how much work has been booked and how much of it must be executed rather than merely announced.

The third is the capacity spending, up 195% year on year to USD 323 million in six months. The company commissioned additional production and test centres for smart munitions, air defence and underwater systems, and installed 19 new robotic automation lines in the same period. That is a company converting an order book into physical throughput — historically the point at which defence firms either deliver on backlog or start slipping schedules.

What ASELSAN actually builds

ASELSAN is not a platform manufacturer. It does not build aircraft, ships or tanks. It builds the electronics that determine what those platforms can detect, decide and do — which is why its products appear across programmes run by entirely different Turkish primes.

• Air defence. ASELSAN is the integrating company behind Çelik Kubbe (“Steel Dome”), Türkiye’s layered air-defence architecture. Its portfolio runs from short-range systems through to the sensor and command-and-control elements of the SİPER long-range air and missile defence system, and includes the launcher and fire-control work around the SUNGUR very-short-range missile system. Air defence was the single largest source of new orders in 2025 and again in the first half of 2026.
• Radar. Ground-based surveillance and fire-control radars, naval radars, and airborne AESA development. Radar is one of the segments the company names as a principal revenue driver.
• Electronic warfare. Ground, naval and airborne EW, including the KORAL II radar electronic support and attack system.
• Electro-optics. Thermal imagers, targeting pods and stabilised turrets — including the payloads carried by Turkish unmanned aircraft.
• Military communications. Tactical radios and secure networks, the product line the company was founded to build, plus nationwide public-safety communications.
• Naval and underwater systems. Combat management systems, sonars and torpedo work, including the combat systems aboard the MİLGEM İ-class frigates and the TCG Anadolu.
• Guided and smart munitions. Seekers, guidance kits and the TOLUN glide-bomb family, demonstrated to more than fifteen countries at Karapınar — covered in detail in Envanter Medya’s Turkish-language report on the TOLUN international firing demonstration.
• Avionics. Cockpit and mission systems, including those on the T625 GÖKBEY helicopter.

The export picture — and its limits

This is where honest analysis matters more than enthusiasm. ASELSAN’s export growth is genuinely fast: international deliveries rose 89% in 2025 to USD 958 million, new export contracts roughly doubled to USD 2.1 billion, and sixteen products were exported for the first time. Export unit value reached about USD 2,200 per kilogram, a proxy the company uses for how far up the value chain its shipments have moved.

But USD 958 million of deliveries against roughly USD 4 billion of revenue means exports were still under a quarter of the business in 2025. ASELSAN remains, first and foremost, a supplier to the Turkish state. That is the opposite of the profile at Baykar, where export sales dominate — a contrast explored in our analysis of why countries buy Turkish drones. For a procurement office evaluating ASELSAN, the practical implication is that Turkish domestic programmes set the production queue, and export orders are scheduled around them.

The company’s international structure is built to change that. Rather than selling only from Ankara, ASELSAN has spent two decades building local entities:

Africa has become an explicit target. ASELSAN systems are in service in Nigeria, Angola, Algeria, Morocco, Chad and Burkina Faso, and in July 2025 the company signed a production agreement with South Africa’s Pamodzi Group to manufacture Astela 3710 handheld radios locally. The company describes South Africa as its gateway to the continent — a market-entry model built on local assembly rather than direct sales.

Where ASELSAN sits globally

The 2026 edition of the Defense News Top 100 placed ASELSAN 40th worldwide, up three places, on defence revenue of USD 4.46 billion — the first time a Turkish company has entered the global top 40. It was one of five Turkish entrants, alongside Turkish Aerospace (48th, USD 3.65bn), ARCA Defense (53rd, a first-time entry after revenue rose more than fourfold to just over USD 3bn), ROKETSAN (64th, USD 2.37bn) and MKE (81st). Combined, those five reported USD 14.9 billion in defence revenue for 2025.

Placing 40th means ASELSAN is comparable in scale to European second-tier primes and national champions — not to Lockheed Martin, RTX or BAE Systems, which operate an order of magnitude larger. The more accurate comparison set is companies like Saab, Rheinmetall’s electronics divisions, Hanwha Systems or Elbit Systems: national champions with a strong domestic base, deep specialisation in a few segments, and export growth driven by a home government’s willingness to sell.

Against that peer group ASELSAN’s distinguishing feature is breadth. Few companies of its size cover radar, EW, electro-optics, communications, naval combat systems, air defence integration and munition seekers simultaneously. That breadth is a consequence of the founding mandate — Türkiye needed all of it domestically — rather than a commercial strategy, and it cuts both ways: it reduces foreign dependency across Turkish programmes, but it also spreads R&D across more fronts than a focused competitor has to fund.

The constraints ASELSAN has not solved

Three limitations deserve to be stated plainly.

Concentration risk. The order book is dominated by contracts with the Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB) and other Turkish state customers. A shift in Turkish defence budgeting or a sharp lira move changes the company’s outlook more than any single export campaign would. Envanter Medya has published a useful Turkish-language treatment of how the working relationship between ASELSAN and the SSB is structured, which is the institutional mechanism behind that concentration.

Component-level dependency. ASELSAN has removed a great deal of foreign content from Turkish platforms at the system level, but system-level independence is not component-level independence. High-end semiconductors, certain RF components and specialist materials are still imported. This is true of almost every defence electronics firm outside the United States, China and a handful of European states — but it should not be described as full independence, and ASELSAN itself does not claim that.

Geopolitical exposure. The Turkish defence sector’s access to US technology was directly affected when Washington sanctioned the SSB under CAATSA in December 2020 over Türkiye’s purchase of the Russian S-400 system. The sanctions targeted the procurement agency rather than ASELSAN itself, but they constrained the ecosystem in which it operates and remain a live factor in any assessment of supply-chain resilience.

What comes next

ASELSAN’s stated ambition is a USD 30 billion backlog, which the CEO has said the company expects to reach from 2027 onward. The nearer-term operational milestone is the OĞULBEY facility, where initial production activity was due to begin in the second half of 2026 and which the company has called one of the most significant developments of its year. Alongside it, the aselsaneXt transformation programme launched in 2024 continues to drive the shift toward higher-value products — visible in the EBITDA margin holding above 26% through a period of heavy investment.

The strategic question for the next five years is whether the export share can rise materially above a quarter of revenue. Air defence is the most likely lever: it is the segment generating the largest new orders, it is the capability most in demand globally after three years of drone and missile warfare, and it is one of the few areas where a NATO-standard, non-US, non-European supplier has a genuine market opening. Whether Türkiye’s export licensing keeps pace with that demand is a political question, not an industrial one.

FAQ

What does ASELSAN make?

Defence electronics: radars, air-defence systems, electronic warfare suites, electro-optical sensors and targeting payloads, military and public-safety communications, naval combat management systems and sonars, guided-munition seekers, and avionics. It does not build aircraft, ships or armoured vehicles itself. The radar half of that portfolio, and the thin supplier tier beneath it, is mapped in our guide to Türkiye’s radar industry.

Who owns ASELSAN?

The Turkish Armed Forces Foundation (TSKGV) holds 74.2%. The remaining 25.7% is publicly traded on Borsa İstanbul under the ticker ASELS. Only Group A shares can elect the board, and all publicly held shares are Group B.

Is ASELSAN a state-owned company?

Not in the conventional sense. It is controlled by a foundation established to support the Turkish Armed Forces rather than owned directly by the Treasury, and it is a listed company with minority public shareholders. In practice its priorities are set by Turkish national requirements.

How big is ASELSAN compared with global defence companies?

It ranked 40th in the 2026 Defense News Top 100 with USD 4.46 billion in defence revenue — the first Turkish company in the global top 40. That places it alongside European and Asian national champions, well below the largest US and European primes.

How much does ASELSAN export?

International deliveries were USD 958 million in 2025, up 89% year on year, against total revenue of about USD 4 billion. New export contracts signed in 2025 were about USD 2.1 billion. Exports are growing quickly but remain under a quarter of the business.

Which countries use ASELSAN systems?

ASELSAN has local entities or joint ventures in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, South Africa, Qatar and Malaysia, and representative offices in ten countries. Its systems are in service across Africa in Nigeria, Angola, Algeria, Morocco, Chad and Burkina Faso, and its subsystems reach further still inside exported Turkish platforms.

What is ASELSAN’s role in Çelik Kubbe (Steel Dome)?

ASELSAN is the integrating company for Türkiye’s layered air-defence architecture, supplying sensors, command-and-control and several of the effector systems across the low, medium and high layers.

Sources

• ASELSAN Investor Relations — H1 2026 and FY 2025 financial results disclosures to the Public Disclosure Platform (KAP).
• European Security & Defence — ASELSAN and Barzan Holdings expand the BARQ joint venture, DIMDEX 2026.
• Breaking Defense — ASELSAN 2025 revenue reporting.
• defenceWeb — ASELSAN 2025 results and African strategy.
• Defense News Top 100 (2026 edition) — Turkish company rankings.