AEB: Russian car, LCV sales rise 1.8% to 160,180 units in Mar

MOSCOW, Apr 4 (PRIME) -- Russia’s sales of new cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) rose 1.8% on the year to 160,180 vehicles in March, the Association of European Businesses (AEB) said in a statement on Thursday.

In January–March, sales of cars and LCVs fell 0.3% to 391,650 units.

“The small plus in March sales, following a similarly small minus in February suggests the market is still looking for a firm direction this year. Cumulative sales in the first quarter are almost at prior year level, achieved through a much bigger effort by market participants as consumer demand is still lagging behind the momentum we saw one year ago. Government subsidies for lower-priced vehicles effective from March obviously also helped to improve the total market picture this month,” AEB said quoting Joerg Schreiber, chairman of the AEB Automobile Manufacturers Committee.

Sales of Russia’s largest carmaker AvtoVAZ grew 10% on the year to 33,821 cars in March and 4% to 82,363 units in January–March.

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