The car market of the Russian Federation fell on a low base – Business – Kommersant

Sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) narrowed the fall from 63% in February to 10.6% in March. At the same time, in volume terms, the market of official distributors continues to look modest: only 48.4 thousand cars were sold, and the low base of the beginning of the crisis in March 2022 helped reduce the rate of decline. AvtoVAZ continues to lead the market, but according to the results of the first quarter, Chery Group brands accounted for almost 20% of the market.

Sales of passenger cars and LCVs fell by 10.6% in March to 48.4 thousand units, according to the Association of European Businesses (.pdf). This drop is significantly less than in the previous months of 2023, when the market contracted by 62-63%, but in volume terms, the market is only a few thousand higher than in february (41.9 thousand cars sold). The fact is that since March 2022, the crisis associated with the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine began to affect the car market: then the brands suspended deliveries to the country, car prices grew, and demand decreased.

The AEB data does not take into account the import of cars bypassing distributors – through the so-called parallel import. The monthly data does not take into account the sales of BMW and Mercedes-Benz, as well as Chery and its other brands (Omoda, Exeed), since they report only quarterly.

According to “Autostat”, whose statistics include such deliveries and brands, the passenger car market in March amounted to 69.9 thousand cars. The main difference in the calculations is sales Chery bands.

According to the results of the first quarter, according to the AEB data, Chery sales increased by 204%, to 18.9 thousand cars, Exeed – by 142%, up to 5.6 thousand cars, and another 5.6 thousand cars were sold by the Omoda brand . As a result, the share of Chery Group for January-March increased by 16.5 percentage points, up to 19.6%. The same share in the first quarter of last year was occupied by domestic Lada (19%).

However, AvtoVAZ remained the market leader, having sold 23.3 thousand cars in March, which is 90% more than a year earlier. According to the results of the first three months, sales grew by 22%, to 64.2 thousand cars, and the market share was 41.9%.

Also increased the share and sales of Chinese Great Wall Motors and its Haval, taking 11.5% of the market (17.6 thousand cars) in the first quarter. Only in March, sales of Haval grew by 100%, to 16.6 thousand units, Great Wall – by 688%, to 1 thousand cars.

Another brand from China Geely, in January-March occupied 8.3% of the market, having sold 12.6 thousand cars. The brand also entered the top 3 sales in March – according to the AEB, 243% more cars were sold than a year earlier – 5.1 thousand cars. In addition, market leaders GAZ group with their LCVs: their sales in March grew by 77% to 5.1 thousand units.

According to the results of the first quarter, the entire market decreased by 44.7%, to 153.5 thousand cars.

Olga Nikitina