Figures from the AEB Automobile Manufacturers Committee (AMC) in Moscow, show 2016 new car and LCV sales dropped 11 % or 176,319 units to 1.42m vehicles compared with the same period the previous year.
For December, sales of new cars and light commercial vehicles in Russia decreased by 1% last month compared with December, 2015 or by 1,526 sold units and amounted to 145,668 cars.
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"A nearly balanced year-on-year performance in December concludes a similarly balanced 4th quarter (-0.9% respectively versus the same period last year)," said AEB AMC chairman, Joerg Schrebier.
"After the double-digit losses in the first nine months of the year, this is good progress. The market as a whole is still lacking positive momentum, but apparently is in process of finally establishing its bottom.
"Full-year sales of passenger cars and light & medium commercials in 2016 reached 1.42m units, 11% below the 2015 result of 1.6m."
For this year, the AEB believes the market has the potential to end a four-year period of decline and return to moderate growth.
Total market sales are expected to be 1.48m units, or 4% above the 2016 result.
