January LV Sales Reflect Russia’s Economic Tailspin

As the Russian crisis over the Ukraine deepens, sales of new vehicles start the year continuing to weaken alongside the country’s sanctions-induced economic nosedive.

Sales of new cars and light-commercial vehicles slumped 24.4 % in January to just 115,390 units.

With the Russian currency in virtual free-fall, all top 10 best-selling cars were produced in Russia. Hyundai’s Solaris topped the list with 8,217 sales, deposing Lada’s Granta, the long-time leader, with 7,737.

The start to 2015 tracked closely to the Association of European Businesses’ Automobile Manufacturers Committee’s forecast of a 24% drop in sales to 1.89 million units in 2015.

The industry’s flow of red ink paused in December when sales rose for the only time in 2014, up 2.4% to 270,653 units.

Committee Chairman Joerg Schreiber likens the situation to the festive season. “If December was a big party for many market participants, then January is the equivalent to a bad hangover,” he says in a statement.

“The peculiarity of the current situation is that 2014 model-year stocks at lower prices are practically sold out, much earlier than usual. At the same time, responding to currency movements, prices for the new model year have increased, much more than usual.”

Lada continued to lead the Russian market, but the gap is narrowing.

Lada’s deliveries fell 26% from like-2014 to 17,492 units in January, while No.2 Hyundai dropped only 15% to 12,707, reducing the gap by more than half from 12,603 to 4,785.

Kia followed, up 1% to 11,346 units.

Chevrolet was unable to maintain its top-10 ranking, dropping to 11^th as deliveries dived 68% to 3,050 units. Rival Ford fell 57% to 1,813 units.

The AvtoVAZ-Renault-Nissan group started the year falling 18.8% to 39,025 units, well ahead of Volkswagen Group, slipping 16.6% to 13,339.

The GM Group finished behind Hyundai, Kia and Toyota, down 69.9% at just 4,161 units.

Along with the Chevrolet fall, GM’s Opel brand tumbled 74.9% to 1,973 units, while Cadillac slowed 52.5% to 38.