We are proud to witness that our journey, started by four engineers in 1975, has led us to become the world’s 42nd largest defense company today based on the Defense News’ annual Top 100 list. Such an achievement of moving up five notches in this renowned listing of global defense contractors in just a year is not a coincidence for sure.

The major enablers of this success are undoubtfully the devoted work and dedication of our dynamic and skilled workforce. In order to take advantage of the potential of this workforce, we are striving to establish a supportive environment that promote innovative thinking, backed by the opportunities that we offer our employees to learn and experiment every day.

Having innovation at the center of every single piece of our work, we develop advanced technological solutions in all military domains ranging from deep ocean to the space towards our commitment to serving our customers. Our portfolio of over 500 products, most of which are field-proven, is constantly adapted to changing technology requirements of our customers worldwide. As a NATO ally, the real-time feedback from NATO exercises, as well as the operations of our army provides us invaluable means to improve our systems based on user experiences.

As one of the major contributors to Türkiye’s goal of a fully independent defense industry, ASELSAN today has reached the condition of being an exporter of the systems that it used to import in the past. It is evidenced by our ever-growing global reach with sales to 88 countries and presence in 18 countries through foreign subsidiaries.

Towards the goal of technology independence, Turkish defense industry has taken a position of enhancing its national capabilities in air defense and recently unveiled its own multilayered air defense system Steel Dome amid rising regional conflicts in the Middle East. It integrates layered air defense systems, sensors, and weapons into unified network structure, powered by artificial intelligence to assist decision-makers during the operations.

As ASELSAN, we are proud to play a pivotal role in the Steel Dome with our air defense systems for all ranges, weapons, sensors, radars, EW, and command control systems. Our self-propelled air defense gun system KORKUT, hybrid air defense system GÜRZ, family of short/medium-range surface-to-air missile systems HİSAR, anti-drone system İHTAR, mobile air defense system ŞAHİN, and long-range air and missile defense system SİPER are just some of the critical systems of the Steel Dome.

Türkiye is also capturing an increasing share of the global UAV market with its indigenously-developed UAVs, equipped by ASELSAN payloads including electro-optical systems, guided munitions, guidance kits, EW pods, signal intelligence and jamming, radar and IFF solutions. These systems, most of which are field-proven, empower air vehicles in terms of efficiency and make them play a game-changing role in military operations. ASELSAN is currently among a few countries, capable of developing these payloads by national means.

These accomplishments are reflected on our financial performance with our defense revenue nearing 3 billion USD with 30% annual growth, bringing our total revenue to 3.2 billion USD in 2023.

As we approach our 50th anniversary, we have set a vision for the future, with a primary focus on 2030 and beyond, called AselsaneXt 2030. Ultimate goal of this vision is to be among Top 30 defense companies worldwide by 2030.

In pursuit of this goal, ASELSAN has embarked on three main priorities:

· Producing the best-in class products,

· Developing game-changing technologies,

· Growing by expanding our global reach.

I believe that ASELSAN will achieve this ambitious target too, with the inspiration of our climb in this year’s list and the strength of our almost 50 years of know-how and experience.

Ahmet Akyol

ASELSAN CEO & President