From "Classic" to "Vesta": all the leaders of the Russian car market for the last 20 years

One of the key events of the Russian car market in 2021 was the change of its leader. This time this title was won by LADA Vesta. Experts of the agency "AUTOSTAT" note that "Vesta" was already the leader of the car market - in 2018. After that, it lost it to Granta for two years. However, LADA Granta could have become No. 1 in Russia for the third time in a row, if not for the notorious problem with the shortage of semiconductors. Because of it, AVTOVAZ was often forced to stop the production at its Togliatti site, where Granta is assembled.

There were practically no such situations at the LADA Izhevsk plant, which produces Vesta. Moreover, according to the results of 11 months of last year, Granta remained the market leader, but Vesta overtook it at the very finish line. Thus, the hegemony of LADA models in our market continues. Only twice in history did they lose the lead to foreign cars, and in both cases to Korean models - Hyundai Solaris (in 2016) and Kia Rio (in 2017). Prior to this, the Ladas led invariably the rating, namely: Classics, Samara - 2, Priora, Kalina. From 2013 to 2015, Granta was the bestseller in the Russian market. Another interesting fact is that since 2007 the market share of the leading model has been less than 10%.

At that time, more and more cars began to appear on our market, primarily foreign cars, and competition on it began to intensify. The results of 2021 were no exception – LADA Vesta accounted for 7.5% of the total sales of new passenger cars. And if we compare this figure with Vesta’s one in 2018 (6.5%), then it is higher, but inferior to the same results of Granta in 2019-2020 (more than 8%).