Among the candidates for departure were European manufacturers of expensive cars, according to the statistics of the Association of European Enterprises (AEB) in Russia, their sales have almost stopped. Thus, British Jaguar sold only five cars per month (-94% until July 2021), Swedish Volvo sold 16 cars (-97%), Porsche – 18 (-97%).
Infiniti and Land Rover are not doing well: both companies sold 21 cars in one month.
Lexus brands are also foreign – 19 cars, Opel – 45, Jeep – 60. According to the official Porsche website, there are currently 34 new Cayenne, 11 Macan, 8 Panamera, seven 911, 13 Taycan electric cars and one each in dealerships across Russia. Cayman and Boxster.
Alina Dzhus/socialbites.ca
Representatives of foreign car companies say that the official presence of the brands in the market, as well as the number of dealers, is preserved, but sales are due only to existing stocks.
“Delivery of new cars still stalls. As for the dealer network, it hasn’t changed much at this stage.”
– told Gazeta.ru in the press service of the Russian office of Jaguar Land Rover.
Honda’s Russian representative office said that stocks of unsold cars from dealers of the Japanese brand will be enough by the end of 2022. In July, Honda sold 13 cars in Russia.
“At this time, we can confirm that we are continuing to sell, service and warranty vehicles,” the Subaru press service said.
The company sold 46 cars in July, 87% less than in the same month of the previous year. In addition, this brand does not have new car deliveries.
Other major auto companies, whose sales last month were dozens of cars, did not answer socialbites.ca’s questions about stocks and plans for a possible business shutdown.
Representatives of large dealership holdings state that the vehicle stocks of brands that have stopped delivery in the current situation will last 2-4 months and the number of dealerships will inevitably decrease.
“If the importers do not change their positions until November, all brands will be out of stock by the end of the year”
Andrey Olkhovsky, CEO of the Avtodom group of companies, told socialbites.ca.
According to him, this does not mean that there will be no new cars on the market, but the official supply channels will be reduced to zero. By August, the company was able to avoid depletion of car stocks by purchasing cars from dealers in the regions due to low demand.
“We will reduce the amount of space for brands we have multiple franchises to keep a productive management team in one place,” Olkhovsky said.
Alexei Starikov, Deputy General Manager of New Car Sales of Avilon Automobile Group, said that dealers are reoriented to work with car brands that remain in the Russian market.
“Our estimations are that dealers will have enough inventory for an average of 2-4 months of trading.
If current conditions continue, the decline will continue in the coming months. It can be estimated that it will be around 80%, Starikov told socialbites.ca.
Avilon signed dealer contracts with six Chinese car brands (Exeed, Chery, Faw, Changan, Haval and Geely) in the first half of 2022, adding that there is a high demand for these cars.
who will we say goodbye to
Sergey Burgazliev, an independent consultant on the automotive industry, is confident that in the event of a shortage of supplies, the first to leave the Russian market will be companies that do not have their own factories and large assets in Russia.
“It is clear that premium brands such as Lexus, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo are the first candidates to curb operations. They’re already selling the rest.
I think Porsche, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo will definitely leave completely,
– Burgazliev was listed in an interview with socialbites.ca. “As far as I know, Infiniti has no such plans, and Toyota most likely will.”
The expert believes that Stellantis, which owns the brands Peugeot, Citroen, Jeep, Fiat and Opel, will most likely stay in Russia and try to protect its factory.
Sergey Udalov, managing director of the Avtostat analytical agency, said that it is very difficult for premium brands, including Mercedes-Benz and BMW, to continue to operate under the sanctions imposed in Russia.
Brands such as Lexus, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover and Porsche cannot fully operate in Russia either.
They have not yet announced their separation, as they continue to support customers, Udalov told socialbites.ca. “Until the geopolitical situation changes, their work will not continue actively,” he said.
Udalov noted that sales figures for July, with a drop of over 90% for individual brands, showed that car stocks were almost gone. The source concluded that large volumes of parallel imports from neighboring countries cannot be trusted due to limited quotas and risk of exposure to sanctions on automakers there.
Source: Gazeta
