Car Prices Will Rise Sharply In Russia
- 2.12.2024, 12:02
Due to the devaluation of the ruble.
Prices for new cars in Russia will rise by 5–15% by the end of the year due to the fall of the ruble against the dollar, euro and yuan, market participants told Kommersant.
"There is already information that next week some distributors will revise their pricing policy," said Nikolai Ivanov, director of the new cars department of Rolf.
According to him, official dealers will raise prices first by 3–5%, giving up part of the profit to keep sales, but cars that are imported through parallel imports will rise in price in proportion to the fall of the ruble.
The revision of price tags will affect not only imported cars, but also locally produced cars, since a certain share of foreign components is used in their production, says Maxim Kadakov, Editor-in-Chief of the Za Ruliom ("At the Wheel") magazine.
The main breakthrough in the growth of prices for Chinese cars, which, according to AUTOSTAT, account for about 60% of the Russian market, will occur at the beginning of 2025, predicts Renat Tyukteev, General Director for Sales of New Cars at Avilon AG. This will be facilitated not only by the fall of the ruble against the yuan, but also by the indexation of the utilization fee, Kommersant's interlocutor in the market added.
At the same time, "some sad guarantee" against a sharp increase in prices may be the current market situation, says Evgeny Zhitnukhin, head of the dealer direction of the Fresh automotive marketplace. He recalled that today loans for the purchase of a car are required for every second client, while they have risen in price, and banks have reduced their issuance. In addition, manufacturers "close the year" and strive to show good sales results, which will also restrain the updating of price tags, the expert added.
In the market of used cars, the situation with prices will be similar: cars imported on parallel imports will be the first to rise in price, Zhitnukhin said. "The rise in price of cars at the age of three to seven years will be stretched for months: it is simply ridiculous to remember how much the dollar and euro cost at the time of their release," he concluded.
According to Autostat, the weighted average price of a new passenger car in January-August increased by 8.4% year-on-year to rub 3.1 million. The ruble fell against the dollar, the euro and the yuan at the end of November. This happened after the imposition of sanctions by the US Treasury against Gazprombank and about 50 other credit institutions. On November 27, the dollar exchange rate in the Forex market approached 115 rubles, and the euro overcame the mark of 120 rubles. The yuan exchange rate increased to 15 rubles.