Günsan seeks a stronger brand in 35+ export markets, how should Turkish makers position?

According to Şahbudak, Günsan has more than 40 years of history and makes switches and sockets, switchgear products, miniature circuit breakers and residual current devices. Sales run through two main channels: projects and DIY stores. The full product range is on Günsan’s corporate website.

According to Şahbudak, the new-generation production facility is in Dilovası, Kocaeli. The aim is to reach the 100 million level by the end of 2026, once Dilovası runs at full capacity. That is a target, not a result. On the brand side, the logic is simple: when you open a shelf in a new market, reliable delivery is the first condition of reputation.

A 2022 report quoted General Manager Erhan Kaya as saying Günsan led the market in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece (ekonomim.com, 2022). The country count in that report differs from the figure in the 2026 interview, and the reason for the gap has not been explained. So we use Şahbudak’s figure of more than 35 countries as the current reference.

In countries you already ship to, the distributor, the certificates and the logistics are in place. Choosing a country where your product sells but your name is unknown costs less than opening a market from scratch.

Regional logic lets you share advertising, trade fairs and a sales team. Poland and the Netherlands sit in Europe, Kazakhstan in Central Asia; reputation built in one part of a region carries into the next market.

Whatever shelf your product sells on, you need the intermediary who reaches that shelf in the target market. Günsan’s pairing of project sales and DIY stores in Türkiye is a useful model: one channel reaches contractors, the other reaches end users. Picking a market without knowing who controls those two channels is like leaving your goods waiting at the port.

In contract manufacturing, profit is counted in cents and the buyer wants a fresh quote every year. A product with its own design and technology gets chosen for what it does, not for its price. That is why Şahbudak’s emphasis on technology and design in the 3-5 year goals sits at the centre of a brand plan.

According to Şahbudak, Günsan printed 10,000 copies of Kıpırdak Elektron Fiyuuu, a children’s book about electrical safety. She says 5,000 copies reached six provinces in partnership with the Bütün Çocuklar Bizim association, 120 libraries in Balıkesir received copies, and the book is also out as an audiobook. The project picks a topic tied directly to what the company makes. An electrical manufacturer teaching electrical safety builds a kind of trust that advertising cannot.

Attach a metric to each step and the flow stops being a paper plan. Useful metrics: capacity utilisation, active distributors per market, the share of value-added products in exports, and brand searches in each target country. AINEO Motor turns calculations like these into engines embedded in business articles; the reader enters their own numbers and sees the result on the page. Your data fills the metrics; the system provides the structure.

A manufacturer with its own design and certificates benefits when Turkish brands become more visible abroad. A contract manufacturer shipping unbranded goods to the same countries meets buyers who now expect a brand. Sooner or later the buyer asks, “Do you have your own brand?”

DIY chains and project firms in the focus markets gain another supplier option. In Türkiye, packaging, logistics and certification firms could see more work if capacity grows. International trade fairs are the showcase for moves like this; VitrA Tiles unveiling The Code at Cersaie 2026 shows the role a fair plays in exports.

Each language version should be localised, not just translated: product names, units, certificates and contact people are written for that market. If you have four focus markets, build four languages first. A single English page for the whole world produces visitors who arrive and leave.

If a distributor sells your products on online marketplaces, write into the contract that product pages must match your brand language. Instead of splitting the ad budget evenly across countries, concentrate it on people in focus markets who search for your brand name.

If distributor stock, order data and website traffic do not sit in one table, brand decisions turn into guesswork. We look at where a small business can start joining up this data in our piece on the ZMD retail technology awards.

Product certification, customs conditions and trademark registration vary from country to country in your target markets. Verify with the official source; this is not legal or financial advice. We are the team that plans market choice, channel setup and brand positioning together through our foreign trade consultancy work.

Yes. Starting with one or two countries where your product already sells but your name is unknown costs less than opening a market from scratch.

No, it is a target. According to Şahbudak, the plan is to reach that level by the end of 2026 once the Dilovası facility runs at full capacity.

A project tied to your product can build trust; Günsan’s electrical safety book is one example. You still need to track its effect with brand awareness data from your own market.