Why Turkish Armed Drones Sell Worldwide: Access, Package, Catalogue (2014–2026)

In 2018 Türkiye’s tactical armed drone had been sold to two countries; by the end of 2025 the maker had signed contracts for the same platform with 36. In the same seven years the heavy-class AKINCI went to five buyers, the ship-based TB3 and the jet-powered KIZILELMA found their first export customer, and Turkish Aerospace’s ANKA reached six countries from Central to Southeast Asia. This file reads the armed-drone line as a product line, not country by country, and names the three clusters that drive exports: access, package, catalogue.

This is the series’ twenty-fifth file and its second thematic one. The data in the Poland, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Gulf, Balkans, Central Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia files is linked, not repeated; the Ukraine and Azerbaijan files are in Turkish. The pattern of the armoured-vehicle file applies unchanged: contract, donation, press figure and report are written apart; rival lines are separate layers; no superiority claim; no loss or combat narrative. The Turkish original is here.

Short answer: access × package × catalogue

With nineteen verified buyers the armed-drone line is the widest product line in the series, and unlike the armoured-vehicle line most of its buyers sit on the direct-purchase rung. Three clusters sit behind that width. Access: export permission from one capital, munitions in the same contract, a system in service since 2014. Package: ground control station, simulator, training and logistics in one contract; published prices on most big purchases; six to seventeen months to delivery; packages scaling from three aircraft to sixty. Catalogue: from TB2 to AKINCI, TB3 and KIZILELMA; Turkish Aerospace’s ANKA and Aksungur; a local-production share for buyers that want one. In one sentence: the buyer takes delivery within a year, with munitions, at a published price and without waiting for a licence — then can move up a class with the same maker. The component this file adds to the Turkish package is access × package × catalogue.

Three things the table says. Width: nineteen verified buyers on four continents, from NATO members to Central Asia. Layers: thirteen buyers took only TB2, six added a second platform; Kyrgyzstan took four at once, Indonesia four different classes. Status: of nineteen rows fifteen are contracts, one a donation, three carry press or undisclosed quantities. The file assigns no numbers to buyers that publish none; the Africa row is limited to an open-source list.

First cluster: access

A single-capital licence, munitions in the package

The Gulf file’s first row was “the closed door”: the UAE’s MQ-9B request was suspended in 2021 and an access problem became a product problem. The Central Asia file wrote the same component for inventories squeezed between the Russian and Chinese lines: neither Moscow’s nor Beijing’s consent; export permission from Ankara alone. The second step is munitions: MAM-L and MAM-C come in the same contract; they were part of the Polish package and there was no separate licence process in the Gulf purchases. Both components concern the contract structure, not the product; the file does not write political context as the main cause but counts these as contract features under the access heading.

Proven in service

TB2 entered the Turkish Armed Forces inventory in 2014; the first export contracts followed four years later. The global fleet passed 1 million flight hours on 10 December 2024. The chronology of TB2’s transformation into an export product writes this as the first threshold: entering your own army’s inventory. It is the drone-line equivalent of the “user reference” component in the armour file: the buyer purchases a system in service with a running line, not a test report.

The table gives rival lines as separate layers; no superiority claim. The common finding: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan kept the Chinese line in inventory and added the Turkish line as a second source; Poland leased the MQ-9A while buying TB2. Turkish and Chinese drones in Africa reads the same dual-sourcing pattern on another continent.

Second cluster: package

Whole package, published price, speed

The Polish contract set the measure of the package: 24 aircraft, SAR radar, simulator, training, spares, logistics and technology transfer for depot-level maintenance in one contract, $270 million. Qatar’s 2018 package was 6 TB2 + 3 ground stations + simulator; Kuwait’s 18 + 3 stations. Prices are public on five big contracts; the file computes no unit price. Speed exceeds the armour line: Kosovo about six months, Croatia nine, Albania and Romania fourteen, Poland seventeen. The maker’s capacity is about 250 aircraft a year.

Two patterns in the table. In the tactical class, direct purchase delivers in six to seventeen months; for the MALE-class ANKA and packages with local assembly the calendar passes two years; in the heavy-class AKINCI the local-production share carries the calendar into 2026. The armour file’s finding holds here: as industrial share rises, delivery lengthens, and the buyer chooses which it wants.

A scalable package

The same platform sells as a three-aircraft package (Albania) and as four sets of twenty-four (Poland). The Balkans file called this “small army, small package”: the buyer purchases a capability, not a fleet. Indonesia’s 60 TB3 is the other end of the scale. That flexibility is why the line finds buyers across budgets as different as Bosnia’s and Kuwait’s.

Third cluster: catalogue

In 2018 the catalogue held one platform. In 2026 it holds TB2, AKINCI, TB3 and KIZILELMA on the Baykar line, ANKA and Aksungur on the Turkish Aerospace line. For the buyer this means moving up a class with the same maker after a first purchase. Azerbaijan went from TB2 to AKINCI, the UAE from TB2 to AKINCI, Indonesia from ANKA to TB3, AKINCI and KIZILELMA; Kyrgyzstan took four platforms at once. The AKINCI–MQ-9B comparison shows where the heavy class sits.

The industrial-share option

Most buyers on the drone line sit on the direct-purchase rung, but higher rungs are open to those who want them. Saudi Arabia will build part of the AKINCI airframe, wiring and avionics in the Kingdom and trained about 300 engineers in Türkiye; in Ukraine a $100 million Baykar plant is under construction and Ivchenko-Progress engines enter Turkish programmes — the series’ only two-way drone line; in Indonesia six of twelve ANKA are assembled at PTDI and a Baykar–Republikorp joint venture was founded; in Kazakhstan an ANKA co-production initiative was announced in May 2026. Poland holds depot-level maintenance rights. On the six-rung scale the drone line fills rungs one, two and three; there is no verified drone example on the equity or co-development rungs. Turkish Aerospace in Africa lists the line’s confirmed operators on that continent.

What changed in twelve years?

The timeline shows three phases: 2014–2019 inventory entry and the first two exports (Qatar, Ukraine); 2020–2023 a NATO buyer (Poland), the opening to the Gulf and Central Asia, the heavy class entering export (Saudi AKINCI); 2024–2026 catalogue depth (Indonesia’s TB3, AKINCI, KIZILELMA) and the Turkish Aerospace line moving to local production (Kazakhstan). The turning point is 2021: the Polish contract established the in-alliance reference, and the suspension of the UAE’s MQ-9B request the same year made the access component visible.

What is official and what is a press figure

The blanks mark the next rung: if the Ukraine plant starts production and the Kazakh initiative becomes a line, the drone line gains two new local-production cases; there is no drone example on the equity or co-development rungs today.

EM-PFI assessment

Here the score measures the whole product line, not one buyer. Country and regional scores in the series are spread: Poland 79, Ukraine 79, Saudi Arabia 82, Balkan line 82, Gulf line 83. The line score is a weighted reading of that spread and does not replace them.

The breakdown follows the series’ backbone with one difference: delivery and cost-effectiveness score above the armour and naval lines, while the industrial-share criteria sit in the same band. The armour line scores 80, the naval line 84; the drone line ties the naval line at 84 but is the widest, with nineteen buyers.

Risks and limits

This section exists not to weaken the Turkish product but to make the file usable.

Where is this line going?

Back to the opening definition: access, package, catalogue. The Turkish armed-drone line gave nineteen buyers a system without waiting for a licence, with munitions, at a published price and within a year, then offered the same buyer a higher class. Poland’s 2021 contract established the in-alliance reference, the Gulf and Central Asia made the access component visible, Indonesia showed catalogue depth in a single package. No product line in the series is this wide; the armour line is further in industrial share and the naval line in design transfer, but neither reaches nineteen buyers. Twelve years, two makers, six platforms, nineteen verified buyers and the maker’s count of 36 contract countries: that is the line’s measure.

The next rung depends on three items: Indonesia’s TB3 and KIZILELMA deliveries, the first locally assembled AKINCI in Saudi Arabia, and the Ukraine plant starting production. If all three happen, the line carries two new classes into export and two new local-production cases into the field by 2028; if not, it stays as it is — access, package, catalogue — and that is an upper rung in the series. This file wrote only what was signed or delivered; press reports of talks were left out.

Reading the line beside General Atomics, AVIC and IAI

For a reader who follows the American, Chinese and Israeli lines, the Turkish line is neither a replacement nor a rival. General Atomics holds the MQ-9 fleet of the US and its closest allies; AVIC’s Wing Loong and CASC’s CH-4 sit in Saudi, Emirati and Kazakh inventories; IAI’s Heron family serves buyers the series did not document. The Turkish line entered where the buyer wrote licence time, package completeness or delivery speed as its criterion, and it did so as a second source beside the existing line in most Gulf and Central Asian inventories. Several lines coexist in one market, each in its segment, and the file claims no superiority. The one sentence to take away: the Turkish armed-drone line is the only product line in the series that reached nineteen verified buyers in twelve years, and it did so on access, package and catalogue rather than on any single aircraft.

Frequently asked questions

Other files in the series

The “Why They Chose the Turkish Defence Industry” series goes beyond individual export headlines to examine the buyer’s need, the alternatives on the table and the contract structure. The drone files this one rests on:

• Why did Poland buy the Bayraktar TB2?
• Why do Gulf states choose Turkish drones?
• Why is the Turkish defence industry growing in the Balkans?
• Why are Central Asian states turning to Turkish drones?
• Saudi Arabia–Türkiye defence industry relations
• Qatar–Türkiye defence industry relations
• Indonesia–Türkiye defence industry relations
• Malaysia–Türkiye defence industry relations
• Pakistan–Türkiye defence industry relations
• Why Turkish armoured vehicles sell abroad
• How the Bayraktar TB2 became a global export product

The full series and regional breakdowns are on the Türkiye defence exports hub (Turkish).

Sources and method

• Polish Ministry of National Defence and Baykar — TB2 contract (24 May 2021), deliveries (October 2022 – 16 May 2024), NSPA (October 2024)
• Baykar statements — Saudi AKINCI contract (18 July 2023), operator graduation (13 October 2025); UAE AKINCI (2024); 1 million flight hours (10 December 2024); 36 contract countries and 2025 export revenue
• Kuwaiti Ministry of Defence and Baykar — 18 TB2 (June 2023), first batch (17 July 2025)
• Romanian, Croatian, Albanian and Kosovar defence ministries — TB2 contract and delivery statements (2022–2025)
• Turkish Ministry of National Defence — TB2 donation to Bosnia and Herzegovina (29 June 2025)
• Presidential statements of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan; Turkish Aerospace — ANKA, Aksungur, AKINCI deliveries (2021–2025); Kazakh co-production initiative (14 May 2026)
• Turkish Aerospace, Indonesian and Malaysian air forces — ANKA contracts (February 2023; 25 May 2023) and deliveries
• Indonesian HLSCC and Baykar — 60 TB3 + 9 AKINCI + Republikorp (12 February 2025); 12 KIZILELMA (6 May 2026)
• SIPRI arms transfers database — Azerbaijani TB2 deliveries
• Envanter Medya inventory files — TB2 export chronology, TB2 country list, TB2 and ANKA delivery inventories; series files 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 15, 16, 17, 20–23

Method note. This file produced no new country data; it re-read items verified in the series’ country files at product-line level. Every item carries its status — contract, donation, press figure, maker data, open source; no numbers were assigned to buyers that publish none; no unit price was computed. Combat and loss narratives were left out; “proven in service” is limited to inventory entry and flight hours. Rival lines (MQ-9, Wing Loong, CH-4, Heron, Orlan) are given as separate layers; no superiority claim. Access is written as a contract feature; political context is not written as the main cause. EM-PFI for the whole line is Envanter Medya’s editorial assessment and does not replace the country scores.