OREANDA-NEWS. April 09, 2010. Passenger car sales in Russia dropped 25% y-o-y in 1Q 2010. Against this background, we highlight Sollers, which managed to strongly outperform the market, thanks to the focus on SUVs and a competitive price policy: sales fell by just 3% in 1Q2010 and added on 12% in March.

On April 8, Association of European Businesses reported on retail passenger car and LCV sales on Russia in 1Q 2010. Russian car sales dropped 25% y-o-y in 3M2010, down to 293,000 vehicles. In March only, auto sales declined by 7% y-o-y to 126,700 vehicles.

Despite the 7% reduction in sales in March, the market in general has somewhat bottomed out. In our opinion, the market was in no small part bolstered by the launch of the cash-for-clunkers program.