Porsche boss expects car prices to fall further

Amid plunging sales and debts to banks, the car market will witness a rising number of deals involving car dealers believes Brent Valmar, vice-president of Romania’s Automotive Manufacturers and Importers Association (APIA), who is also the general manager of Porsche Romania.
Porsche is the biggest importer on the domestic market, which came to generate only 382m euros while turnover revolved around 1bn euros in 2007-2008 period, according to Finance Ministry data.
“It has been and will be hard. There will be further dealers closing, while others will be bought and swallowed by rivals. The average price per car will become lower and lower, the more so as many producers have launched smaller and more fuel-efficient models,” Brent Valmar told BUSINESS Magazin in an interview.
Even so, Porsche boss said he did not expect the decline to continue in 2011, though “there is no way we can get close to 2007 any time soon”.
As regards Porsche Romania, “the focus is on cash and market share,” according to the company’s head, who stressed that the fight for market share had become dramatic in the past two years amid dealers’ large car inventories.