Sollers eyes car, LCV market in Russia rising 10–11% in 2017

MOSCOW, Jan 25 (PRIME) -- Russian carmaker Sollers group expects that sales of new cars and light commercial vehicles (LCV) will increase by 10–11% in 2017, CEO and core owner Vadim Shvetsov told reporters on Wednesday.

According to the Association of European Businesses (AEB), sales of new cars and LCVs in Russia dropped 11% to 1.42 million vehicles in 2016. But the AEB sees the market rising 4% to 1.48 million vehicles in 2017.

“A historical event happened last year, we reached the historic bottom (of sales). Later we bumped there several times and remained there. This is why we have all the reasons for the market to jump to the result of 2015, meaning we should grow by 10–11%. This consensus was actually based on simple math connected to the fact that the Russian has government decided to support the car industry this year again,” Shvetsov said.

The government support will help local brands to maintain pricing competition, he said.

Sollers has agreed with South Korea’s SsangYong that the company will sell no more than 2,000 SsangYong cars this year. “These figures are rather moderate judging by our past, as in 2013 we sold more than 34,000 cars of the brand in Russia, but we have to have this market test to show more significant figures for the distributor and the producing company in future,” he said.

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