Porsche Romania registered a 50% drop in sales amid new market conditions in January 2008.
The company, the largest domestic importer and representative of the VW, Audi, Skoda, Seat and Porsche brands, in the first month of the year registered a 17.3% sales increase to a volume of 3,958 units from all 5 brands, company data reveals.
The growth rate is lower than 23% posted last January when the overall volume reached 3,375 units, as well as to last year's average when growth stood at 35% to almost 58,800 units sold domestically.
Porsche Romania has downwardly revised this year's target from 10% to 2% due to the new market conditions.
"The January increase is not decisive as it's based on deliveries that correspond to several sales in 2007. This year, I expect to see stagnation or a slight increase by 2% at the most," Brent Valmar, Porsche Romania general manager, told ZF.
The company's best-selling brand was Skoda, with 1,963 units, which included 17 Praktik units, up over 40% compared with the same period last year.
The best-selling Skoda model domestically was Octavia II, which sold 869 units.
"In 2008, Skoda forecasts a sales volume of 30,000 units. Amid high demand, Skoda's inventory plummeted in 2007, but rebounded in the second half of the year, as well an in early 2008. At present, Skoda inventory includes around 4,000 units," Vlad Rusu, brand manager for Skoda with Porsche Romania, told ZF.
In 2007, the average price of a Skoda car was 13,000 euros, plus VAT, up 500 euros on the previous year, according to the company's officials.
As a result, the Czech carmaker could reach domestic sales worth almost 400m euros in 2008, largely due to an increase in sales of Octavia and Superb models.
Volkswagen, the brand that boasted the strongest sales last year for Porsche Romania, ranked second in the first month of this year, after it sold 1,645 units.
Porsche Romania's general manager chose not to speculate on the brand that would register the strongest increase this year.
Porsche registered the strongest increase in the first month of this year, after it sold nine cars (up 800%), which included eight Cayenne SUVs, while Audi, the premium brand of the German group, registered an almost 35% advance and reached 143 units, primarily due to the Q7 SUV.
Seat is the only brand of VW-Audi group that registered a drop, after it sold 198 units, down almost 28% against the level posted in January 2007.
At present, Porsche Romania has 90 sales locations on the domestic market that represent all five brands, but plans to open another nine this year.
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