Car sales in Russia could drop by as much as 25-50% in 2009 as the global financial crisis takes hold, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
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“The falling availability of loans, growing unemployment, slower personal income growth, the devaluation of the rouble — all taken together these factors could lead to a contraction in sales this year of 25-50 percent,” Stanley Root, a partner at PwC in Moscow, told Reuters.
In separate research, the news agency said that the Association of European Businesses (AEB) has forecast a 19% fall in foreign car sales in Russia during 2009, calling this an optimistic scenario.
“The car market in Russia [for 2009] will return to levels seen two years ago, that is, in 2006,” Root told reporters.
Russia’s vehicle market slowed dramatically in the fourth quarter of last year as the international financial crisis hit Russia’s banks and knocked confidence in an economy already suffering from lower energy prices.
