When will there be many really cheap cars in Russia?
- December 8, 2023
- 0
The publication of sales results in the Russian passenger car market for 11 months of 2023 illustrates its rapid growth. This cannot but be reassuring, but some aspects
The publication of sales results in the Russian passenger car market for 11 months of 2023 illustrates its rapid growth. This cannot but be reassuring, but some aspects of the statistics do not allow us to fully rejoice.
Data on the first registrations of passenger cars in Russia, collected by JSC PPK (Passport Industrial Consulting), shows that in January-November 2023, 992,200 cars were imported into Russia, both new and used. This is almost four times as much as in the eleven months of 2022. Moreover, 82.7% of car imports came from China. It is also known that another 11.1% of vehicles came to us from Kyrgyzstan and 2.4% via Kazakhstan. The majority of ‘parallel imports’ come to Russia through these channels: both used cars and ‘formally used’ passenger cars – essentially new cars with less than 100-200 km on the odometer.
But 628,600 imported vehicles are really new. And everyone understands that these are predominantly “Chinese”. Car manufacturers from China are actively flooding our market with their products.
In addition to the “heavenly” manufacturers, now only AVTOVAZ offers “new” manufacturers. Well, and UAZ too. He used to focus mainly on meeting government orders, and now even more so. So we essentially have a new car market, clearly separated into ‘China’ and domestic cars.
According to the AEB, dealers have sold a total of 939,000 cars since the beginning of this year. Moreover, 292,000 of them were sold by AVTOVAZ. The rest came from Chinese brands, plus the parallel imports of cars from other car manufacturers, which against such a backdrop were not particularly large.
Suffice it to say that only Kia managed to claw its way into the top ten leading brands in terms of sales volumes in the Sino-Russian “stage”, resulting in 31,700 cars sold. The Koreans finished in a not particularly honorable eighth place after eleven months. At the same time, the “versatile” Chery, taking into account the results of its numerous sub-brands (Exeed, Omoda, etc.), has “added” about 180,000 cars since the beginning of the year. For reference, approximately the same number of cheap LADA Grantas were sold during this period.
Significantly, in the period from January to November, Chery Tiggo 7 Pro Max was purchased by 36,000 Russians, and LADA Vesta by 34,000. And most of the ‘heavenly’ best-selling models are in as much or more demand than Vesta: Haval Jolion is sold out with 48,000 units, Geely Coolray – 34,000, Omoda C5 – almost 33,000. Despite the fact that these relatively affordable ‘Chinese’ examples cost considerably more than the top trim levels of Tolyatti’s flagship.
That is, we have finally formed the following situation: in the Russian market, AVTOVAZ is “responsible” for the niche of budget, most affordable cars, and Chinese car brands are responsible for all other segments up to the premium class. Moreover, supply apparently already more or less meets actual demand. But this balance is clearly not present in the budget segment.
Even the “starter” LADA Granta in its minimum configuration costs about 1 million rubles at an official dealer, and for many Russian families even this amount is unaffordable.
Can the Chinese auto industry enter the clearing of AVTOVAZ and saturate the Russian market with budget cars?
— In my opinion, a “budget” car is a car on which the average Russian can save money in two years. Without giving up buying food, clothing, paying utilities, supporting children and other features of normal daily life. From this point of view, we do not have and do not expect any ‘budget’ cars to appear on the market. The Chinese can help us with this, as the prices for many of their cars are very affordable in China itself. But due to measures to protect the domestic market, there is no need to talk about a Chinese budget car,” Sergei Burgazliev, an independent consultant in the automotive industry, shared his opinion with the AvtoVzglyad portal.
Anyone who has even a passing interest in the subject of the Chinese car market knows that there are numerous modern and well-equipped models there, which are comparable in price to the same Granta. But to legally bring such a car to the Russian market, you will have to pay for logistics, storage, insurance, customs duties and disposal costs, transfer to the budget, and spend money on installing GLONASS UVES. In total, these costs add about 1 million rubles to the sales price of each imported car. Let’s not forget the commercial benefits of selling a vehicle in Russia.
Taking the above into account, even the cheapest Chinese car cannot really be considered accessible to the mass consumer. This, as well as the high price tags for the cheapest AVTOVAZ model – that is, the Granta – automatically ended the hopes of a Russian car owner to see a new budget car in a dealer’s showroom. At least for the near future.
photo AVTOVAZ
photo globallookpress.com
photo globallookpress.com
Data on the first registrations of passenger cars in Russia, collected by JSC PPK (Passport Industrial Consulting), shows that in January-November 2023, 992,200 cars were imported into Russia, both new and used. This is almost four times as much as in the eleven months of 2022. Moreover, 82.7% of car imports came from China. It is also known that another 11.1% of vehicles came to us from Kyrgyzstan and 2.4% via Kazakhstan. The majority of ‘parallel imports’ come to Russia through these channels: both used cars and ‘formally used’ passenger cars – essentially new cars with less than 100-200 km on the odometer.
But 628,600 imported vehicles are really new. And everyone understands that these are predominantly “Chinese”. Car manufacturers from China are actively flooding our market with their products.
In addition to the ‘heavenly’ manufacturers, only AVTOVAZ now offers ‘new’ manufacturers. Well, and UAZ too. He used to focus mainly on meeting government orders, and now even more so. So we essentially have a new car market, clearly separated into ‘China’ and domestic cars.
According to the AEB, dealers have sold a total of 939,000 cars since the beginning of this year. Moreover, 292,000 of them were sold by AVTOVAZ. The rest came from Chinese brands, plus the parallel imports of cars from other car manufacturers, which against such a backdrop were not particularly large.
Suffice it to say that only Kia managed to claw its way into the top ten leading brands in terms of sales volumes in the Sino-Russian “stage”, resulting in 31,700 cars sold. The Koreans finished in a not particularly honorable eighth place after eleven months. At the same time, the “versatile” Chery, taking into account the results of its numerous sub-brands (Exeed, Omoda, etc.), has “added” about 180,000 cars since the beginning of the year. For reference, approximately the same number of cheap LADA Grantas were sold during this period.
Significantly, in the period from January to November, Chery Tiggo 7 Pro Max was purchased by 36,000 Russians, and LADA Vesta by 34,000. And most of the ‘heavenly’ best-selling models are in as much or more demand than Vesta: Haval Jolion is sold out with 48,000 units, Geely Coolray – 34,000, Omoda C5 – almost 33,000. Despite the fact that these relatively affordable ‘Chinese’ examples cost considerably more than the top trim levels of Tolyatti’s flagship.
That is, we have finally formed the following situation: in the Russian market, AVTOVAZ is “responsible” for the niche of budget, most affordable cars, and Chinese car brands are responsible for all other segments up to the premium class. Moreover, supply apparently already more or less meets actual demand. But this balance is clearly not present in the budget segment.
Even the “starter” LADA Granta in its minimum configuration costs about 1 million rubles at an official dealer, and for many Russian families even this amount is unaffordable.
Can the Chinese auto industry enter the clearing of AVTOVAZ and saturate the Russian market with budget cars?
— In my opinion, a “budget” car is a car on which the average Russian can save money in two years. Without giving up buying food, clothing, paying utilities, supporting children and other features of normal daily life. From this point of view, we do not have and do not expect any ‘budget’ cars to appear on the market. The Chinese can help us with this, as the prices for many of their cars are very affordable in China itself. But due to measures to protect the domestic market, there is no need to talk about a Chinese budget car,” Sergei Burgazliev, an independent consultant in the automotive industry, shared his opinion with the AvtoVzglyad portal.
Anyone who has even a passing interest in the subject of the Chinese car market knows that there are numerous modern and well-equipped models there, which are comparable in price to the same Granta. But to legally bring such a car to the Russian market, you will have to pay for logistics, storage, insurance, customs duties and disposal costs, transfer to the budget, and spend money on installing GLONASS UVES. In total, these costs add about 1 million rubles to the sales price of each imported car. Let’s not forget the commercial benefits of selling a vehicle in Russia.
Taking the above into account, even the cheapest Chinese car cannot really be considered accessible to the mass consumer. This, as well as the high price tags for the cheapest AVTOVAZ model – that is, the Granta – automatically ended the hopes of a Russian car owner to see a new budget car in a dealer’s showroom. At least for the near future.
Source: Avto Vzglyad
Donald Salinas is an experienced automobile journalist and writer for Div Bracket. He brings his readers the latest news and developments from the world of automobiles, offering a unique and knowledgeable perspective on the latest trends and innovations in the automotive industry.
