After the depressing results for June, the situation worsened in July despite government efforts to help the industry. The grim market performance that saw auto sales fall by 56 percent in June, was followed by an even dismal result in July, recording a 58 percent drop to 115,483 units.
According to the AEB, the first seven months of 2009 Russian auto market registered a 50 percent decline in sales to 879,144 units. The bad results weren't recorded just by foreign car companies either. Russia's biggest market leader Lada, faced sales down 42 percent in July to 32,426 units.
But back to the two giant American auto manufacturers, GM-owned Chevrolet, which is Russia's second best-selling brand, recorded a sales drop of 59 percent to 7,798 units, while Ford saw a bitter 72 percent decline to 5,333 vehicles.
GM's Opel brand fell some 62 percent on the Russian auto market in July to 3,243 units. With a poor performance of just 25,066 units sold in the first seven months of 2009 on the Russian market, Opel ranks 11th in this country.
“Global automakers have expanded aggressively into Russia over the past few years, expecting it to become Europe's largest market in 2009 as it had long been among the fastest growing”, reported Automotive News.
The Russian government's response to this came in the form of a rescue package that increased in time, although it didn't return the expected results. Authorities wanted banks to ease the conditions for crediting, but people remain uninterested, especially because unemployment and fears of pay cuts.
“We hope the actions taken by the government will start to reverse this trend during the summer, but urge close monitoring of the situation to ensure the actions are taking effect", said David Thomas, chairman of the AEB's Automobile Manufacturers Committee.
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