Romanian-made cars have been in high demand for several months, although imports have increased in the past few years, while sales of domestic autos have dropped.
Automobile Dacia and Daewoo Automobile Romania have announced record sales in May, the biggest monthly figures in the past three years.
What is behind this trend? First of all, each of the two producers has a card up its sleeve. Dacia has recently launched the Solenza model, a face-lift of the carmaker's best-selling model, Supernova.
Solenza hit the stores in the second week of last month and managed to attract 2,700 orders, which allowed Dacia to sell 6,400 cars. July 2000 was the only month during the past three years when this level was exceeded.
In the first five months of the year, Dacia sold more than 24,000 units, with 21,000 on the domestic market and 3,000 heading for exports.
Daewoo relies on the Matiz model, which sells very well in its economic variant. The Craiova-based carmaker sold 2,400 autos last month, and more than 2,000 were Matiz.
"Some clients did not want to pay for a tape recorder that they would have changed anyway, while others didn't want air conditioned. So, we introduced the Matiz Economic last February and added several options, so now we have 10 models. The automobiles are made locally, which provides us with higher flexibility," says Valeriu tones, public relations director with Daewoo Automobile Romania.
Moreover, the company has launched an aggressive discount campaign, which has enabled it to sell almost 7,500 cars in the first five months of the year, up more than 60% since last year.
"It's been at least three or four years since we last sold 2,400 cars in a month on the Romanian market. These figures account for a 70% increase as compared to the sales recorded in the year-ago period," tones added.
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