The market of new light commercial vehicles in Russia may grow by 20% this year. In quantitative terms, this will be only 90 thousand vehicles, that is, much lower than the market volumes five years ago (in 2018 there were 112.1 thousand vehicles). And this is only under a favorable combination of all circumstances.
In the base scenario, experts from the AUTOSTAT agency expect more modest successes in the light commercial vehicle market: experts predict an overall growth of only 10% in 2023. In quantitative terms, in the base scenario, experts predict the sale of 83 thousand new LCVs. And this is higher than last year, when the market dropped to 75.2 thousand vehicles. Under the most unfavorable circumstances, experts believe that this segment will not have time to fall below the last year’s level over the remaining months of the year. Even taking into account negative factors (new recycling fee, rising prices, instability of exchange rates, the impact of sanctions on the import of some models from unfriendly countries, etc.), in a pessimistic scenario, an increase in LCV sales is still expected (+2% to 77 thousand vehicles).
Experts from the AUTOSTAT agency noted that the market growth in the light commercial vehicle segment in 2023 is not as impressive as that of cars and trucks. The short explanation for this is very simple: the withdrawal from the market of Ford Transit and the cessation of production of LADA Largus has not yet been compensated. For example, the domestic automaker Sollers is still far from the declared volumes (3 thousand vehicles for 8 months).
