Car dealers expect that sales of new cars in Russia in December will be comparable to November. According to Alexander Shaprinsky, Commercial Director of the Pragmatika network, demand remains active at the beginning of the month due to the availability of Chinese cars at previous prices and the start of New Year's offers. At the same time, he admits a decrease in the final volumes by no more than 5% due to the traditional drop in traffic in the last pre-New Year week.
Andrey Terlyukevich, General Director of the AvtoSpetsCenter Group of Companies, gives a similar assessment. He believes that December may end at the level of November, and the expectation of the January indexation of the recycling fee and a possible increase in VAT to 2% will be an additional incentive for buyers. These factors encourage some customers to speed up the purchase of a car before the end of the year.
At the same time, market participants warn about risks. Andrey Kamensky, Marketing Director of AG Avilon, notes a shortage of individual models and a reduction in support measures from importers, including discounts and bonuses for trade-in. Oleg Barinov, Executive Director of ROAD, adds that December traditionally remains a strong month, but one should not count on large-scale sales. According to preliminary estimates, the market will either repeat November's figures or be slightly weaker.
