Car manufacturers take a hammering in Russia
Car manufacturers may be enjoying boom times in Britain but in Russia it is quite a different story.
Sales of new passenger cars and LCVs — light commercial vehicles — fell by 42.5 per cent in March to 139,850, as Russian consumers feel the pinch of slowing GDP growth, sky high inflation at 16.9 per cent and a rouble which has fallen 33.75 per cent against the dollar in the last year and 15.76 per cent against the euro.
This picture is in stark contrast to the rest of Europe, where car manufacturers are enjoying a rapid recovery. Data published earlier today showed the UK rang up its best March car sales ever.
As the FT's Andy Sharman wrote earlier, each of the European Union's big five markets recorded strong growth last month, with France and Germany up almost 10 per cent year on year, Italy up 15 per cent and Spain up more than 40 per cent in March.
The Association of European Businesses (AEB), which produces the data for Russian car sales, said all of the ten bestselling models in Russia last month were locally produced.
Joerg Schreiber, chairman of the AEB's automobile manufacturers committee, which is in charge of the data, said:
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. Sooner or later, the situation will stabilise, but we are not at this point yet.