Russian Car Factories Began The Year With A Drop In Production

In January 2020, Russian car factories reduced the production of passenger cars by 16.6%. 94 thousand passenger cars rolled off the conveyors, according to ASM-holding.

Among them - 23.8 thousand cars of Russian brands, the production of which fell even more, by 18.3%. The share of Russian models decreased by 0.5 points - to 25.3%.

Lad car production has grown by 18.4%:

• the LADA plant in Togliatti - minus 16.6%;
• the LADA plant in Izhevsk - minus 21.7%;
• ChechenAvto - minus 31.4%;
• AvtoVAZ subsidiary LadSport increased production by 3.7% using the LadGrantDrive Active model;
• the former JV GM-AvtoVAZ, which was acquired by AvtoVAZ at the end of 2019, increased production by 17.6%.

The volume of production of foreign passenger cars at Russian enterprises fell by 16%, to 70.2 thousand units. However, their share increased to 74.7%. Among the largest enterprises, growth was recorded only at two factories:

• automobile plant "GAZ", Nizhny Novgorod (contract assembly of Skod and Volkswagen) - by 300%;
• Mazda Sollers Manufacturing Rus, Vladivostok - by 9.1%.

In addition, in January 2020, a total of 900 cars were produced at the Mercedes-Benz factories in the Moscow region and Hawail in the Tula region. Both factories were launched in the spring of 2019.

Manufacturers shipped 84.9 thousand cars to auto retailers, which is 13.4% less than last year. In January, 102 thousand cars were sold, which is 1.8% more than in January-2019.

The decrease in production volumes was caused by long corporate vacations at some enterprises and subsequent short-term production downtime. In addition, despite a slight increase in sales in January, the Russian car market returned to its decline in February (minus 2.2%). Most likely, the negative trend will continue, and there is no need to increase output volumes yet, even despite a possible short-term growth in demand against the backdrop of a jump in the dollar and euro rates.