(Adds details, AEB comment)
MOSCOW, April 8 (Reuters) - The fall in new car sales in Russia accelerated to 42.5 percent in March, year-on-year, the Association of European Businesses lobby group said on Wednesday, after a 38 percent fall the previous month.
The AEB said 139,850 new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles were sold in Russia last month, compared with 243,332 in March of 2014.
"Total market performance in March is bad, of course, but not much worse than expected," Joerg Schreiber, chairman of the AEB Automobile Manufacturers Committee, said in a statement.
"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," Schreiber added.
After several years of strong growth, car sales in Russia shrank in 2014 as the economy weakened due to lower oil prices and Western sanctions over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis.
The rouble nosedived in December and consumers rushed to buy cars and other durable goods to protect fast-devaluing savings before retailers raised prices, but have mostly held back from making large purchases since then.
The AEB earlier forecast a 24 percent fall in car sales this year, while accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has said it expects a decline of 25 to 35 percent.
"Sooner or later, the situation will stabilize, but we are not at this point yet," Schreiber said. (Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov and Maria Kiselyova, editing by Louise Heavens)