According to a recent report, in May this year the weighted average price of a new passenger car fell below 3 million rubles, falling to 2.88 million rubles. report analytical agency "Avtostat". As the agency announced, in July last year this figure exceeded the three million mark for the first…
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The average cost of new cars in Russia has fallen sharply. What is the reason? Auto expert Moseev: Sales of affordable Chinese cars in Russia have increased 06.27.2024, 08:03
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ANIKA
June 30, 2024
According to a recent report, in May this year the weighted average price of a new passenger car fell below 3 million rubles, falling to 2.88 million rubles.
report analytical agency “Avtostat”. As the agency announced, in July last year this figure exceeded the three million mark for the first time. From that moment on, the negative trend became even more intense, reaching a peak of 3.4 million rubles in March 2024.
However, the institution announced that there was already a recovery in April, with the weighted average car price in car dealerships falling by 7% compared to March and by 8.5% in May compared to April.
“The structure of the market is changing: more people are buying cheap cars, cheaper ones. Discounts play a role somewhere, but if there were only discounts, prices would not fall so much.
is the changing structure in favor of accessible machines.
Prices are rarely adjusted upwards; they mostly stabilize. Now the main component of the cost of new cars is the ruble against other currencies. Avtostat director general Sergei Tselikov said in an interview with socialbites.ca that the ruble has been stuck in the 85-90 range against the US dollar for a long time, and accordingly prices are stable.
The average price on the market was very noticeably affected not only by the change in models offered on the market, but also by regulatory factors – the government closed the Kyrgyz channel for the export of foreign cars through the charge of additional recycling fees during customs clearance, notes the head of the Automarketer project Oleg Moseev.
“This decrease in the weighted average price is due to the mix of cars sold (range – socialbites.ca). They added more cars to the B-class segment. Moreover, in May the share of sales from parallel imports decreased sharply, and mostly expensive cars were sold through this channel,” said Moseev.
Avtostat agency emphasizes that AvtoVAZ has a major impact on changes in average prices.
It increased its market share from 30.8% in April to 31.5% in May.
The plant, which traditionally operates in the low-cost automobile segment, is gradually overcoming difficulties with sanctions and logistics and increasing production.
Chinese consumer goods
Experts say that Chinese players are not standing aside and are finally starting to enter the market with budget models. So, at the end of 2023, the Livan company launched the S6 Pro sedan in Russia,
The price tag starts from 1.95 million rubles.
Geely has separated its older, cheaper models into a separate Belgee brand, and sells new-generation cars in parallel under the main brand. Thus, Geely has its own budget sub-brand. For example, the price of the Belgee X50 (aka Geely Collray) in Russia is 1.97 million rubles, and the Chinese are asking for 2.2 million rubles for the Belgee X70 (Geely Atlas Pro). million rubles.
Companies Chery, Haval, Changan, GAC and Omoda launched budget models. Another brand that is relatively new to the Russian automobile market is the Solaris brand. Accordingly, St. The new owner of the former Hyundai plant in St. Petersburg (AGR LLC) produces inexpensive models well known to Russians:
Hyundai Solaris (now Solaris HS), Creta crossover (HC) and Kia Rio (KRX).
Prices for these machines are quite attractive for Russian customers – from 2.1 to 2.6 million rubles.
Autostat says that, on the contrary, sales of Chinese brands that position themselves as players in the premium segment have decreased. This applies to brands Exeed, Tank, Lixiang, Voyah, Zeekr. The agency emphasized that the market share of Chinese premium brands decreased by approximately 1.5 times in May.
What will the prices be?
Market experts are cautious in their predictions about future prices of automakers. The head of Automarketer, Oleg Moseev, says that now all car companies are in a wait-and-see position.
“Someone raises prices, someone lowers them, but everyone is watching how the situation with the ruble will develop. If everything goes well with the currency, then
You should not wait for the price to increase.
So far this situation is largely influenced by the state. If more cars are available, that is, the range in the lower price category will increase and, accordingly, prices may also decrease slightly,” Moseev thinks.
The head of Autostat, Sergei Tselikov, is confident that another indexation of the recycling fee could have a significant impact on the cost of new cars. In April and May of this year, at the instigation of Russian car factories, State Duma deputies and the government proposed to introduce a gradual increase in the scale of recycling collection. According to the ideologists of such a step, this will encourage Chinese auto companies to invest in localizing car production in Russia.
“If they bring two or one and a half times more “bailout”, it means plus 300 thousand rubles per car,
– then prices will gradually increase. This fee has always had a direct relationship with them; prices will react with a delay of 2-3 months,” Tselikov summarized.
Dmitry Rogov, president of the RogovMobil company (specializing in the delivery of foreign cars abroad), says that cars are also becoming more expensive on the secondary market. He states that cars produced during the pandemic in 2020, when the microchip crisis was at its height, have now become “valid”, that is, the most profitable in terms of imports. Prices for these cars were higher due to the shortage of microelectronics and, accordingly, such “Covid” cars are more expensive on the secondary market.
A year ago, the weighted average price of new cars in Russia exceeded the 3 million ruble mark and has been rising rapidly ever since, but collapsed at the end of last month. Experts believe that the main thing is not that automakers reduce prices, but that more and more budget models appear on the market, which the Russian consumer is hungry for. Read more about what will happen to the situation and prices in car dealerships in the article from socialbites.ca.
Source: Gazeta
