New automotive sales rise by 28 percent, up to 51,800 units, in first four months

Romania's new automotive total sales reached, in the first four months of 2018, 51,853 units, with a rise of 27.8 percent, as opposed to the same period of last year, according to the statistics of Automotive Manufactures and Importers Association (APIA), published Friday.

According to the APIA experts, this is the highest volume of car sales recorded in a similar period, over the last ten years, in 2009, the first year of the economic recession, when a total of 49,971 units were sold.

The source says that the automotive sales are mainly backed by legal entities, which cover 64 percent of the total automotive purchases in the first four months of the year, but, on the other hand, the number of cars bought by individuals (15,395 units) is 126 percent higher as compared to 2017, when as many as 6,808 units were sold.

Concerning used cards, APIA notes that in April this year, used auto imports were 6.8 percent smaller than the similar month of last year. Overall, for the past four months of 2018, the total number of used cars registered in Romania stood at 157,120 units, by 6.1 percent lower than the same period of 2017.

At the general level of new automotive sales, APIA data show that during the first four months of the year there were 51,853 units, up by 27.8 percent as opposed to last year, of which 41,131 cars (+34.7 percent as compared to 2017) and 8,722 commercial vehicles (+2 percent).

Dacia tops the brand ranking (cars and commercial vehicles) with 14,038 units, followed by Volkswagen (5,033) and Ford (4,408).

By origins, 29 percent of the cars sold on the domestic market were from Romania, 21.4 percent from Germany, 11.5 percent from the Czech Republic, 7.1 percent from Spain and 6.8 percent from Turkey.

In this context, local automotive sales has gone up, this year, by 64.9 percent, as compared to last year, while imported car sales have recorded a growth of 25.3 percent.