ROKETSAN’s Turnover to Grow over 50% Within Ten Years: CEO Murat Ikinci

ROKETSAN’s turnover is set to grow more than 50 per cent in dollar terms in the next five to ten years, says Murat İkinci, CEO of the Turkish defence giant.

“We completed 2025 with an increase of over 100 per cent in exports and a turnover exceeding 2 billion dollars,” says Ikinci. “Through the new contracts secured last year, we grew our business volume by around US$10 billion in both export and domestic markets. That means a threefold growth and indicates that ROKETSAN’s turnover will grow more than 50 per cent in dollar terms in next five to ten years. We achieve that growth rate with local content rate of 92 per cent.”

ROKETSAN recently opened new production facilities in Ankara. How much of an impact will this have on the company’s production capacity?

The Turkish defence industry has reached a significant level of maturity in terms of original design and R&D over the last years. At the current stage, the critical challenge lies in producing these products rapidly, at high volumes, and cost-effectively. Accordingly, we have planned our recent investments specifically to address this need.

Our facilities, officially inaugurated on April 7th in the presence of our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, elevate our entire operations from production to testing and R&D to the next level. In Kırıkkale, our fuel production facilities, established on a 25,000-acre site, enable us to develop critical fuel technologies using domestic resources. Meanwhile, our Lalahan warhead facility stands as one of Europe's largest production infrastructures, significantly boosting our capacity and expediting operational workflows.

The newly opened Advanced Technologies, R&D and Engineering Centre, with a capacity of 1,000 personnel, will allow us to focus on next-gen technologies, while our Missile Integration Facilities will create a multiplier effect on the production side once commissioned. Through this strategic investment, we aim to achieve a five-fold increase in serial production capacity, markedly enhancing the delivery speed of strategic defence systems including SİPER, HİSAR, and TAYFUN systems. These facilities not only increase our mass production capacity; they also take ROKETSAN to a much higher level in terms of delivery speed, efficiency and sustainability.

While completing the first $1 billion phase of facilities, we add another $2 billion to this amount with the new investments. In fact, with these investments, we are securing Türkiye’s infrastructure in rocket and missile systems, paving the way for the next several decades.

What are the new products that the company is unveiling at SAHA 2026?

At this exhibition, we are presenting approximately 40 of our products. Our display ranges from air defence and missile systems, the striking power of the Steel Dome Project, our globally proven UCAV munitions to anti-tank missile systems, and locally developed missile solutions achieving record-breaking ranges.

Our new systems that we are launching at our stand, NEŞTER, CİDA, Mini Cruise Missile, and CİRİT C-UAS, will take center stage at SAHA this year.

NEŞTER munition variant is designed for high precision hits with minimal collateral damage. Unlike classical solutions, it has a unique warhead containing metallic blades which are being activated shortly before impact. Thanks to this non-explosive design, it is able to focus on specific targets rather than causing mass destruction.

A new member of long-range anti-tank missile systems family, CİDA is an advanced technology that directly addresses operational requirements on the field with pinpoint accuracy, thanks to its beyond line-of-sight capability, extended range, rapid strike proficiency, and hybrid seeker. With a much longer engagement range than its rivals, this system acts as a force multiplier by being integrated into land, sea, and air platforms.

Mini cruise missile is a next-generation solution that combines a cost-effective structure with high operational impact. Compared to its counterparts, it creates a significant force multiplier on the field, especially against air defence systems, thanks to its extended range, heavier warhead, and multiple carriage configurations. It also offers operational diversity through its visual intelligence gathering capability from the target line.

CİRİT C-UAS, a new version of our CİRİT Laser-Guided Missile, stands out as an alternative to the high-cost air defence missiles used against UAVs. Through this capability, it will be possible to effectively destroy targets using CİRİT C-UAS within the suitable engagement range before resorting to high-cost platforms and ammunitions against airborne threats.
We continue to work uninterruptedly to bring these new systems into Turkish Armed Forces’ inventory.

How significant is the company’s investment in the space sector? Will we see ROKETSAN doing more in this field?

As ROKETSAN, we have a critical role in achieving independent access to space. With the decision taken at the Defence Industry Executive Committee in 2012, our company was entrusted with the mission of bringing our country into the space league. In line with this goal, ROKETSAN continues its efforts with great resolve to contribute to the National Space Program and develop the domestic space industry, leveraging our deep engineering heritage and technological capabilities. In 2015, we institutionalized these activities by establishing our Satellite Launch Space Systems and Advanced Technologies Research Center.

In this context, we focus specifically on rocket technologies, which form the foundation of access to space. The work we conduct with sounding rockets is one of the most critical steps of this journey. Indeed, in 2017, we crossed a major threshold by exceeding an altitude of 100 kilometers with the first domestically developed sounding rocket. With additional launches conducted in 2020 and 2023, we further advanced our capabilities by reaching higher altitudes with various payloads. Throughout this process, we have made significant progress in critical technologies, particularly in liquid-propellant rocket engines.

We are looking to commission our own satellite launch vehicles, developed entirely with domestic and national capabilities, to deploy our satellites into space as soon as possible. To that end, the first test of the ŞİMŞEK-1 Satellite Launch Vehicle is planned to be conducted in the near future. We are also working on the ŞİMŞEK-2 project, where we are developing a system that will be able to place 1,500-kilogram class satellites into orbits over 700 kilometers.

In the coming years, you will see ROKETSAN taking part in this field with much more visible and ambitious projects. Beyond making our country independent in the space industry, our goal is to make our country a global player in this field.

Can you talk about ROKETSAN’s role in Türkiye’s multi-layered Steel Dome Air Defence project?

Within the scope of the Steel Dome Project, ROKETSAN is taking on the striking power, which is one of the system’s most critical elements. We contribute to the effective operation of this architecture by developing multi-layered air defence missile systems and establishing an integrated structure across short, medium and long-range layers.

Our HİSAR and SİPER systems form the backbone of this structure. While HİSAR-A and HİSAR-O operate in the low-altitude layer, our SİPER system engages at the long-range layer. SİPER Long-Range Air and Missile Defence System Block I with a range exceeding 100 kilometers, has been added to the inventory, and development of SİPER Block II continues with a target range of 150 km. These systems provide an effective defence against a wide spectrum of threats, ranging from fighter jets and UAVs/UCAVs to cruise and ballistic missiles.

Our ALKA Directed Energy Weapon System also acts as a vital force multiplier, providing a complementary capability against emerging threats like FPV drones. SUNGUR and BURÇ systems are also play an active role in short-range air defence, protecting both units in the field and critical infrastructure. We complement this architecture in maritime defence with our MIDLAS and LEVENT systems.

The Steel Dome is not a static entity, but a system that is ever-growing and constantly evolving layer by layer. So, we are continuing to both enhance our existing capabilities and integrate new platforms into the system.

Recently we have witnessed the fact that layered air defence systems are critical in our region. From this perspective, we can state that both our air defence systems and the Steel Dome as a system are among the most critical needs for the countries in our region. As ROKETSAN, we export our rocket, missile, and ammunition systems to nearly 50 friendly and allied countries. We will all witness what the Steel Dome, as a multi-layered air defence structure, will achieve in the future.

What are some of the short-term and long-term goals of the company?

Our main goal in short, medium, and long-term is quite clear: To strengthen our country's defence by meeting all the rocket, missile, and ammunition needs of the Turkish Armed Forces with our indigenous and national systems. Our ROKETSAN family of over 7,000 members works on a 24/7 basis, in order to fulfil the responsibility entrusted to us by our country and our nation. Besides, we have also some short-, medium-, and long-term goals like increasing our exports to friendly and allied countries and scaling our company, both financially and operationally.

We are preparing our company for the future with the facilities we have opened and with the Lalahan Missile Integration Facilities that we have laid the foundation for. I would like to point out that we completed 2025 with an increase of over 100 per cent in exports and a turnover exceeding 2 billion dollars. Through the new contracts secured last year, we grew our business volume by around $10 billion in both export and domestic markets. That means a threefold growth and indicates that ROKETSAN’s turnover will grow more than 50 per cent in dollar terms in next five to ten years. We achieve that growth rate with local content rate of 92 per cent. All of these clearly demonstrates that ROKETSAN has not only expanded its business volume and increased its production but has also achieved this through local and national capabilities.

As ROKETSAN, we are determined to increase our growth and production pace in the upcoming period. Within this scope, we are planning our objectives, and in the period ahead, we will continue to allocate a significant portion of our revenue to R&D and infrastructure investments, and we will take our company to new heights.