Serbia 2009 Car Sales

Sold vehicles market share by brands in 2009.

Srpska verzija

Although the speculated number of new registered vehicles in 2009 is 100 000 (including imported used cars), negative official trends of imported cars sales in last two months in 2008 continued in 2009 with undiminished intensity.

In spite of common price lowering, car importers recorded sales down to 40 % compared to the previous year.

There are a lot of reasons for this “debacle”. Some of the major reasons we can find in domestic economy crisis based upon retail chain monopolies and difficult and unfair financing of car sales, but they are visible even in psychological aspect, since a lot of people wait for some happier times to purchase a new car.

The only bright spot regarding domestic market goes to starting of production in Kragujevac and signing annex to the joint venture contract between Fiat and Serbian Government which saved domestic car market from total collapse.

Imported sold vehicles market share by brands in 2009.

Considering that domestic manufacturer market share exceeds a third of Serbian car market, the real beginning of common national motorization and rejuvenation of car fleet in Serbia. This happened primarily thanks to the Government subsidies, acceptable price of Fiat Punto, and very attractive conditions of financing, which altogether made a true formula regarding further development of car market in Serbia.

Those who count on good car sales in the future must primarily put an offer consisted of good quality products with low prices, not forgetting favorable financing conditions.

C segment downfall with the sales 51 % down in relation to the previous year compared to 17% increase of B segment sales confirms this assumption. It is a hard time for Serbian economy and it is noticeable considering very bad results of commercial vehicles sales which went down 61 %.

However, the crisis has not influenced all in the same way.

The losers in “Big Players” category are Fiat (-70%), Opel (-61%) and VW (-59%). The “crisis gainers” are Dacia (22%), Hyundai (6%) and Mazda with acceptable -14%. All in all, the real market game is about to begin. The winning formula for this year considers investment in marketing through promotion and presence of a brand. All indicates that everything is going to be much better in 2011, but only for those who survive this year!