Sales of new cars and light commercial vehicles in Russia dropped by 12% compared with May 2013, or by 28,019 sold units and amounted to only 201,487 cars, according to the AEB Automobile Manufacturers Committee (AEB AMC).
In January-May 2014 new car and LCV sales declined by 6% or 60,686 units in comparison to the same period of the previous year. This year 1,030,533 cars have been sold.
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Among the top ten best-selling models of passenger cars, nine are produced in Russia.
“In May, we see a continuation of the weak sales trend broadly anticipated for the whole second quarter of the year,” said AEB AMC chairman, Joerg Schreiber. “Overall market dynamics in April-May are very similar to the same period last year, marking two consecutive years of sales decline.
“To put things in perspective: In the record year 2012, combined sales in the April – May period exceeded current market performance by 19%. Industry consensus is there are no reasons to believe in fundamental trend reversal any time soon.
“The best scenario under the given circumstances appears to be the absence of a further trend deterioration. June [will] give us a clue about where the market is headed moving into the second half of the year”.
There was speculation today (9 June), Russian automaker AvtoVAZ could cut further posts as a result of the challenging domestic market, but the producer was not immediately available for comment from Togliatti.
