China jumps into the gap
Now that virtually no Western brand builds or ships cars to Russia, the Russian car market is more or less entirely in the hands of Russia and China. Since January, the Chinese share of the Russian car market has therefore more than tripled.
In November, 31.3 percent of new cars sold in Russia were of a Chinese brand, the Reuters news agency writes after viewing sales data. In January of this year that was still 9.6 percent, which means that the Chinese market share has more than tripled. Given the dire state in which the Russian car market is currently in, the significance of that value is limited. Due to all kinds of factors, sales numbers in the country have fallen considerably. In November, some 46,000 new cars were registered, with a population of about 143 million people. By way of comparison: the roughly 17.5 million Dutch people together bought 27,810 cars in November. So, per capita, about five times more cars were sold in the Netherlands in November.
More than 16,000 of the 46,000 cars sold in Russia in November were Chinese, the remaining 30,000 almost all Russian. The share is expected to grow slightly next year, to 35 percent. In terms of total turnover, the Chinese share is somewhat larger, as the Chinese are relatively strongly represented in the higher regions of the market. The premium products previously bought from European brands now mostly come from China.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl