Ford's market share in Romania was 8.58%, including passenger cars and commercial vehicles and the number of registrations was 16,168 units, the company said in a statement cited by local media.

The automaker operates the former Daewoo factory at Craiova, in southern Romania, which builds the B-segment B-Max SUV and newly introduced Puma crossover.

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It was the second-largest player in the market after local producer Dracia, the largest foreign brand, and leader of the commercial vehicle segment, romania-insider.com reported.

Ford held passenger car market share of 7.39%, slightly higher versus 2018.

"At the same time, Ford consolidated its position as a leader in the commercial vehicle market for the fourth year in a row," the release said.

The company holds 15.85% market share in this segment, helped by the sales of the Transit, Transit Custom and Ranger models, all of them market leaders in their segments.

"To strengthen our leadership position, we developed, in the second part of 2019, our own car scrapping program for commercial vehicles, the only one of its kind in Romania," said Cristian Prichea, general manager of the Ford Romania NSC.

Romanian car production increased by 3% year on year in 2019 to 490,412 units, according to data from the Romanian Association of Automobile Producers (ACAROM).

Citing the data, romania-insider.com said Ford produced nearly 141,000 cars in 2019, a volume similar to 2018, while Dacia produced 349,528 cars, up 4%.

Ford is likely to increase its output in 2020, after it started producing the new Puma model in October, mainly for export.

Ford sold 1,331,300 vehicles in 2019, down 1.4% year on year, in what it calls is "traditional European 20 markets", achieving 7.4% market share.

The automaker said 2019 was its best year for commercial vehicle sales in 25 years and its fifth year as top commercial vehicle brand in the region.

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