Lada has fewer buyers – Newspaper Kommersant No. 183 (7384) of 04.10.

Demand for cars in Russia began to fall again, follows from the sales statistics for the past week and a survey of dealers. Instead of the traditionally strong results at the close of the month, sales dipped by 20%, and traffic in car dealerships fell by a third. Market participants attribute this to the announcement of a partial mobilization in Russia on September 21st. The sharp reaction of the market was caused by the increase in the share of the budget segment, led by Lada Granta, where customers are the first to react to the crisis. Sales of more expensive Chinese and Korean cars have so far held up. According to Kommersant’s estimates, as a result, the market in September will grow by about 4% compared to August.

Over the past week (September 26-October 2), the average sales of passenger cars decreased to 1.2 thousand cars per day from a peak of 1.5 thousand a week earlier – as a result, sales amounted to 8.7 thousand cars. Such data leads “Autostat”. In percentage terms, sales sank 19.3%, the biggest weekly drop in two months. This is contrary to the usual trend, according to which the most cars are sold in the last week of the month, as dealers close more deals to fulfill the monthly plan and replenish working capital. The main event of the penultimate week of last month is the announcement on September 21, Wednesday, of the beginning of partial mobilization in Russia. Until September 25, sales were still at a high level, by the end of the week 10.8 thousand cars were sold.

In September, the demand for cars was generally stable, but the situation has changed since September 21, Andrey Terlyukevich, the head of Avtospetstsentr, states.

He talks about a significant drop in traffic in all areas of business and an increase in refusals from previously concluded deals. Alexei Starikov, Deputy General Director for Sales of New Cars at Avilon, is more conservative in his estimates and speaks of a slight slowdown in demand. At the same time, dealers also see an increase in the offer to buy back personal cars from customers, says Andrey Olkhovsky, head of Avtodom. Sergey Udalov from Avtostat also spoke about the decrease in the number of applications for loans at the end of the month.

Due to the results of the past weeks, the monthly sales may amount to 44.4 thousand cars, which is 4.3% higher than in August. The slowdown is already noticeable: in August, the market grew by 20% compared to July.

Fresh Auto CEO Denis Migal notes that if we compare the traffic of the week ended October 2 with the previous week, traffic in showrooms increased by 48% in the new car segment. But, he continues, traffic was 29% lower than the week before the partial mobilization was announced. “We should not expect an increase in traffic to car dealerships in the coming months,” he concludes.

At the same time, the emerging trend towards a drop in sales is due to the dynamics of Lada: the brand’s sales for the week sank by 26% compared to the previous one, to 3.3 thousand cars. At the same time, sales of brands from China and Korea were growing. AvtoVAZ’s market share in the last week of September was 37.9%.

The budget segment traditionally reacts faster to any changes in the situation or shocks, since customers here have less money, and the value of these funds is higher, Sergey Udalov notes.

More expensive cars – Chinese and Korean proposals (they start already at a level of about 2 million rubles, while Granta costs less than 0.7 million rubles) – are less subject to such changes, the expert continues. The premium segment was the most stable during the crisis, but in recent months its share has fallen sharply due to the depletion of warehouses and the inability to replenish them against the backdrop of sanctions. In any case, a certain volume of transactions will remain, Sergei Udalov notes, including due to the need to replace taxi fleets and carsharing. Last month, a number of car-sharing companies also announced the replenishment of their fleets with Chinese brands.

Olga Nikitina