The biggest domestic car importer anticipates sales will rise this year to 35,000 units, despite some players'' predictions that the market will fall.
Porsche Romania, the domestic importer of Audi, Porsche, Seat, Skoda and Volskwagen, last year sold 32,450 cars, more than 84% higher than in the previous year. The growth pace is almost double that witnessed by the car market during the same period.
"We see sales growth on the car market as possible this year, too, and implicitly an increase in our car sales by 5%-10%," says Brent Valmar, general manager of Porsche Romania.
The statement comes after other major car market players stated that this year might bring the first slump in recent years.
Domestic producer Dacia, as well as Renault Nissan Romania, the domestic importer of the French group Renault, have already announced they expect slight declines in sales, starting this year, after last year''s boom.
Even though the year 2006 may bring a car sales increase, Porsche Romania projections related to turnover are unchanged from last year, according to the general manager of the company.
According to Porsche Romania, the year 2005 saw an increase in the volume of sold cars by over 84%, but turnover advanced by only 20%, to 380 million euros. From this point of view, Porsche Romania is the biggest importer operating on the domestic market.
The best selling brand on the domestic market, though, is Dacia, and among import cars, Renault.
As was seen at the level of the entire market, the highest growth was enjoyed last year by the brands that are well represented in the volume segments of the domestic car industry.
Thus, Skoda sales in 2005 swelled by 95.6% from the level of last year. The best selling model was Octavia II (4,654 units), closely followed by Octavia Tour (4,577 units). In line with to the company''s data, this level of sales brought Romania the leading position among importers of this model on the European market, with Germany ranking second, where half of the total volume of cars distributed on the Romanian market were sold.
Volkswagen sales rose by almost 83% last year to 11,200 units, a development that was primarily generated by the high demand for the new Passat model, launched last year. During the whole of last year, more than 2,100 Volkswagen Bora units, 1,850 Golf V and 725 Touareg SUV models were sold.
Volkswagen''s commercial vehicles unit witnessed a 50.2% sales growth, with Volkswagen Caddy, the light utility vehicle model, being the most popular model, with 943 units sold.
The LT model ranked second, with 647 sold units, while the Volkswagen T5 was positioned third, with 541 sold units.
The Spanish brand Seat also posted a very solid growth pace, with sales close to 3,000 units. The best selling model was Ibiza (12,15 units). ionut.bonoiu@zf.ro
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