Romanian car market down 14.5pct in Jan-April; market share increases in ecological cars

The Romanian car market saw a decrease of 14.5pct in January-April this year, compared to the same period in 2020, with only the ecological cars seeing an upward trend by almost 80pct, according to data published on Monday by the Automotive Manufacturers and Importers Association (APIA), agerpres reports.

On the national market, the top car brands (cars + commercial vehicles), in January-April 2021, is led by Dacia, with 6,529 units, followed by Ford (3,376 units), Toyota (2,594), Volkswagen (2,488), Skoda (2,461), Hyundai (2,224), Mercedes Benz (2,219), Renault (2,033), BMW (1,231) and Peugeot (1,012).

According to the same source, the passenger cars represented about 77pct of the total sales, in April of this year, with 6,747 units sold, up 58.2pct compared to the similar month of 2020.

The first four months of the year showed an overall decrease in sales (-14.5pct), compared to the same period of the previous year.

By type of fuel, between January and April 2021, the share of gasoline cars saw a moderate decrease (-1.1pct), compared to the similar period of 2020, and reached 62.1pct.

At the same time, cars with diesel engines recorded a decrease of 5pct, compared to the data of the first four months of the previous year, with a market share of only 26.2pct.

On the other hand, the "electrified" cars, respectively the electric ones (100pct and plug-in hybrids), as well as the full hybrid ones (which also have electric propulsion without charging from the external source) had a market share of 11.6pct in the reference interval, 2.1 times higher than the one they had in the same period last year (5.5pct).

Sales of "green" cars also performed in 2021, recording an increase of 79.8pct compared to the end of April 2020. The plug-in hybrids saw a strong increase of 155.2pct.

According to APIA, in the first four months of the year, most car purchases were made by legal entities, covering 70pct of total car sales, while the remaining 30pct were bought by individuals.

At the same time, there was a 16.2pct jump recorded on the segment of light commercial vehicles (including minibuses and pick-ups), year-on-year.