AEB: Russian Mar car, LCV sales fall 42.5% to 139,850 vehicles

MOSCOW, Apr 8 (PRIME) -- Sales of cars and light commercial vehicles (LCV) fell 42.5% on the year to 139,850 cars in March, the Association of European Businesses (AEB) said in a statement Wednesday.

“Total market performance in March is bad, of course, but not much worse than expected. What we are seeing now in the sales statistics is the long-predicted 'hole' in consumer demand, caused by the pull-ahead of car purchases at the end of last year, and compounded by heavy price inflation in the current year,” CEO Joerg Schreiber said, as quoted in the statement.

“Sooner or later, the situation will stabilize, but we are not at this point yet.”

In January–February, Russia’s car and LCV sales fell 36.3% to 383,691 units, the agency said.

Sales of Russian major car maker AvtoVAZ fell 26% on the year to 27,423 cars in March and went down 25.2% to 68,554 cars in January–March.

For further details, please, see the agency’s report on its official Web site:

http://www.aebrus.ru/upload/iblock/ace/eng_car-sales-in-march-2015.pdf

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