Renault ahead of Daewoo for the first time

The car market in Romania will go back to normal, as proved by the increase in vehicle sales by 24% in Q1 this year, as compared to the same time last year. The same increase in sales reached 27% for cars, Dan Vardie, general secretary of the Association of Automotive Producers and Importers (APIA), said on Wednesday.

The most spectacular trend was registered by new automotive imports (up 79% against the same time last year), which came to account for 30% of the Romanian new automotive market, in relation to less than a quarter the previous year.

The best-selling import makes were again Renault, Volkswagen, Skoda and Peugeot, while Renault car sales in March exceeded rival Daewoo’s for the first time.

The domestic automotive production went down 22.4% to 16,000 vehicles in the first three months of the year, as compared with the same time last year, while the number of cars produced dropped 25.4%.

Dacia’s output fell 28%, Daewoo’s fell 16%, while Aro made only 296 cars, that is a 30% decrease. The sales of domestic carmakers registered contradictory trends. Whereas Dacia sales went up 41% in Q1, Daewoo’s and Aro’s went down 52.5% and 62.6% respectively.

A significant increase was registered by Diesel cars, accounting for about half (47%) of the imported car market and 14% of the entire automotive market.

APIA explains this fact by the lack of proper supply from the domestic producers. For the next period, APIA representatives estimate a more pronounced increase, so that total sales will amount to 105,000 new vehicles by the end of the year, out of which 82,000 new cars.

The automotive market trend reversed. Until recently, production used to grow and sales used to drop. After finding themselves left with large stocks, domestic producers cut some of the output and focused on their sales departments. Under the circumstances, sales go up, production goes down.

As regards Romanian automotive sales, they were nearly 10% higher in Q1, 2001 than in Q1, 2000, but 15% below last year’s quarterly average.