The market of foreign cars (both imported and produced in Ukraine) in 2012 could rise by 10% compared to 2011, when the figure was about 180,000 units, the director of the strategic development department at Atlant-M, Oleksiy Tereschenko, has said.
“We won’t see a 39% increase on the foreign car market like last year. Over the first nine months of 2012 the foreign car market showed a 12% rise compared to January-September 2011, which is below the forecast. This is related to the negative information background before the elections, with the expectation of a hryvnia devaluation. We believe that the situation could improve in November-December, as the pent-up demand was initially great, and now it has multiplied. This will happen if there are no cardinal political “shuffles.” But even if sales invigorate at the end of the year, the result over the year will be modest: with a 10% rise from 2011,” he told Interfax-Ukraine.
He noted that, according to preliminary data, the results in September were nearly the same as in August, when the first drop (8%) from the same month last year was seen.
Among the factors affecting the market are objective (citizens’ income, the hryvnia to U.S. dollar exchange rate, interest rates on loans) and subjective (public’s expectations in the broadest sense – the risks of devaluation, business prospects).
An important factor, according to the analyst, is the very careful planning of sales by importers, who after 2008 tend to stick to negative forecasts and identify risks for business in Ukraine as high.
“But the slowdown in sales on the foreign car market is overshadowed by a rapid decline in the sale of domestic brands, the share of which in the total sales of new cars has fallen below 18%. These poor results led to staff dismissals at Ukrainian automotive plants and caused a new wave of attempts to achieve protection measures,” said the expert.
