Conference “Car market of Russia. Results and prospects”. 21.02.12

Post release

We are glad to inform You that the conference “Car market of Russia. Results and prospects” for analysts and specialists of marketing took place on February 21st of 2012 in Moscow. Organizers of conference were analytic agency AUTOSTAT and Internet- portal “AutoMarketolog.ru” with the support of Committee on entrepreneurship in automotive sphere of Russian chamber of commerce. The General partner of conference was company ZEBRA Project. There were 19 speakers with presentations and reports in the conference (http://www.autostat.ru/pages/meropriyatiya/nashi_konferencii/pervaya_konferenciya_2011/). More than 90 representatives of different companies participated in this event: consulting groups, car producers, dealers, banks, insurance companies and other players of car market. There were eight representatives of mass media of Moscow and St. Petersburg in the event for the media coverage. Regional publishing of Ural, South of Russia and Volga supported the on-line conference. 

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There was an awarding of winners of competition “The most precise forecast of Russian car market in 2011” at the beginning of conference. Director of analytic agency AUTOSTAT, Sergey Tselikov, gave diploma and prizes to the winner – Galina Taskaeva (“KIA Motors RUS:, specialist of planning) and to Andrey Krochin and Roman Minchenko (both are from company “Novline”), who got the second and the third places.

During the session participants got know in detail the results of Russian car market and they got know forecasts about the future of market from experts. By talking about tendencies of the market, experts decided that they don’t believe in the growth of Russian car market of passenger cars in 2012. On their opinion, the market volume increasing would be not more than 5% this year. Slowing down of market growth will be the consequence of finishing of state scrappage program and subsidizing of credit program. As remarked the director of marketing of Ford Sollers, Valerii Tarakanov, experience of European countries, where scrappage programs were conducted, showed that eco bonuses pulled off up to 50% of commercial sales in future.

By the words of director of marketing and support of sales of GM DAT CIS, Aleksandr Migal, Russian car market could fall already in April as exactly sales boom was started this month in the previous year.

As experts suppose, AutoVAZ will have the highest losses this year, which was the main beneficiary of scrappage program. On the opinion of chairman of Board of directors of GC “DreamCAR”, Oleg Moiseev, mass foreign cars, especially of local assembly, will be able to improve their positions because of share of Lada decreasing. “In particular, Kia will be able to increase sales due to the new Rio and Renault – due to the launch of the new crossover”, – he remarked. 

And entry of Russia in WTO and the duties decreasing for import of new foreign cars, on opinion of experts, won’t influence significantly on the Russian car market. “Maybe we will see only demand decreasing in segment of imported foreign cars before the entry in WTO, as buyers will wait for duties decreasing and the following prices decreasing”, -said the head of department of sales planning and marketing strategy of “Toyota Motor”, Boris Salenko.

Companies - car producers, inspired by the success of Hyundai Solaris and Kio Rio, rush to launch new bestsellers in the Russian market. So, GM will bet on new version of Aveo and it hopes for high sales, informed Aleksandr Migal, director of marketing and sales support of GM DAT CIS.

As Aleksandr Migal remarked, Russian market became “market №4” in the world for Chevrolet. Sales increased almost 3 times – from 63 thousand units to 173 thousand units in compare with 2005. In Russia Chevrolet is the foreign brand №1 the fifth consecutive year. If we take into account that it was sold 173 485 cars of this brand in 2011 then we could say that one Chevrolet car was sold every 3 minutes.

In Russia Chevrolet Company will launch a low-cost sedan under the name Cobalt, which is to be the locomotive of brand in the Russian market. Russian premiere of Cobalt will be in Moscow motor show – 2012 and this car will be on sale in 2013.

“The price diapason of sedan Chevrolet Cobalt in Russia was not defined yet and we consider this model as the direct competitor to Renault Logan”, – said Aleksander Migal.

By 2025 Russia must become equal by provision of cars of population with the present indicators of such developed countries as Japan, France and Great Britain. This prospect was announced by the manager of analytic department of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Russia, Leonid Kostroma.

By the present time Russia is approximately on the same level as Brazil by the level of automobilization of population but it outstripped China and India and also some countries of Eastern Europe, such as Slovakia and Ukraine. By the words of Mr. Kostroma, there will be 400 cars per 1000 citizens by 2025 and the level of per capita income, with which the market saturation would be reached, will be 25 thousand dollars. Therewith, the annually share of scrappage cars will increase from 4% in 2011 to 6% in 2025.

The every second car, which is sold today in Russia, belongs to segment C1 and C2. These data were presented by the manager of automotive practice in CIS of Ernst&Young, Ivan Bonchev. According to the forecast of Ernst&Young, С-class will remain the most massive in the Russian market also in 2015. But by the words of Mr. Bonchev, it will decrease from 50% in 2011 to 41% in 2015 and it will be, first of all, because of demand shift to the SUV segment. As a whole, segmentation of Russian car market in the average term perspective won’t be changed seriously.

There was a final stage of new competition – “The most precise forecast of Russian car market in 2012” during the conference. We will know names of winners in the final conference in 2013.

Conference took place but You can still participate absentee >>>