Automotive Faqs

The official sales figures for brand new foreign cars in Russia in the first quarter of 2007 will be released by the Association of European Businesses. According to information obtained by Kommersant, Ford has remained the market leader, Chevrolet held on to second place, and Hyundai overtook Toyota in third place.

A new competitor in the rankings was the Chinese automaker Chery, which snatched 12th place from Germany’s Volkswagen. The overall growth in sales of foreign models in 2006 was 73%, and experts predict that 2007 will be another record year. Kommersant has obtained preliminary data from the Association of European Businesses (the AEB AMC division brings together foreign automakers) on sales figures for new foreign-made automobiles in Russia for the first quarter of 2007.

According to the AEB AMC, Ford retained its position at the top of the list, which it won from the Korean automaker Hyundai in the 2006 rankings, by selling more than 39,000 cars so far this year. Second place went to Chevrolet, which sold 36,700 cars. In 2006, Chevrolet saw an unprecedented 400% growth in sales in Russia, but it still has yet to catch up with Ford.

The leader in the premium segment of the market was again Audi, which sold 3,020 units. The official data from the AEB AMC will be released today, and yesterday the organization refused to comment further. The Russian offices of General Motors (GM), which owns Chevrolet, and Ford also declined to comment on the first-quarter results. At the end of last week, Ford reported its official sales figures for Russia, which showed 145% growth to 39,066 cars.

GM has so far not released its results for January-March of this year, and the data obtained by Kommersant does not show a breakdown in Chevrolet’s sales volumes by model: the Russian office of GM is due to present them to the AEB AMC this morning.
However, experts believe that the automaker’s success in Russia has been underpinned by sales of the budget-friendly Lanos, Aveo, and Lacetti models, which sold 12,800 models in January-February (61.5% of demand). As a result, Chevrolet posted first-quarter growth of 109% (including the Chevrolet-Niva off-road vehicle).

The backbone of Ford’s success in the first quarter was provided by the Focus (20,500 cars) and Fusion (10,900 cars) models, which commanded 86% of the demand for Ford cars. Ford added 140% in sales in the first quarter, despite recent problems with unions and a brief interruption in production (see Kommersant from February 14).

Although the leaders retained their spots from last year, there were several upsets in the AEB AMC rankings. In 2006 Hyundai fell from second into third place, and now it has been upset again by Toyota, which moved into third place with 29,300 units sold. Another loser was Volkswagen, which dropped from 12th to 15th place.

As Kommersant has reported, Volkswagen Group Rus is dissatisfied with sales in the Russian market and plans to bring in former Severstal Auto head Denis Petrunin to oversee production. Interestingly, part of Volkswagen’s undoing in the rankings was the inclusion of Chinese automobiles in the list for the first time: the German automaker’s former spot was taken by the Chinese producer Chery, which sold 6,700 units.

According to the data from AEB AMC, overall the Russian market for foreign automobiles grew by 73%, with sales of 281,900 new cars, According to Severstal Auto’s director of marketing, Valery Tarakanov, 2007 is on track to be another banner year for sales of foreign cars in Russia. “My personal prediction was that the market will grow by 45-50%, but now I wouldn’t rule out 60%,” said Mr. Tarakanov. He could not comment on the future value of the market, but he did note that big gains for foreign automakers could mean serious trouble for their Russian competitors.

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