The aggressive pricing of cars and the start of deliveries to the Romanian Police led to sales of Romanian-made cars resuming growth in May, after four months of decline compared with the previous year. "The results in May are satisfactory. They were helped by the extension of the warranty and by the delivery of fleets to the Romanian Police," explains Jean Michel Sicre, Dacia''s commercial manager.
In May, Dacia began delivering the first batch of Logan cars, as part of a contract for the delivery of about 6,000 cars to the Romanian Police.
Sales of Romanian cars remain lower, though, when compared to the number of sales for the first five months of last year. However, imports sustained the pace of growth witnessed in the last five years, when sales tripled.
"There are two main reasons for the trend of sales at the beginning of the year. Primarily, promotional packages offered as bonus to the purchase of a car have attracted a growing number of customers. In addition, we are now seeing the results of a strong expansion of our dealership network that allowed us to take our products as far as those areas where we had not been represented up to standards until now," says Brent Valmar, chief executive of Porsche Romania, the biggest automotive importer on the domestic market.
Imports of cars registered the fastest growth in the first five months of the year.
Almost 47,000 imported cars delivered in the first five months accounted for a 40% growth from the previous year.
Promotions of up to approximately 2,000 euros for some of its models made Renault the best-selling imported brand in May, selling almost 2,000 cars. The French have been the market leaders for a number of years now.
Massive investments in communication have allowed the German Opel brand to double sales of cars compared with the same time last year, while Toyota announced that May was its best month since the brand came onto the domestic market, selling nearly 500 cars.
Even though less influenced by promotional campaigns, luxury brands have accelerated their growth lately, too.
"The start of the year was not that good, considering the weather was not very helpful. However, the growth will continue at a fast pace as of May and (judging) from the orders thus far we will have a very good June and July," says Michael Schmidt, chief executive of Automobile Bavaria, the importer of the German group BMW in Romania.
Under the circumstances, sales of new cars reached nearly 94,000 units in May, 10% more than last year. Besides the 94,000 cars, more than 15,000 commercial vehicles and buses were sold in the first five months of the year, statistics of the Association of Automotive Manufacturers and Importers (APIA) show.
With a total of almost 110,000 new vehicles, the automotive market achieved a growth of over 7% compared with last year.
Estimates of the players on the market point to a 5-10% growth pace for sales of new vehicles in 2006. ionut.bonoiu@zf.ro
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