The year 2014 therefore becomes the first when the auto market sees growth in volume after the decline in 2008-2013, when it lost almost 80% of its sales volume. Even with the return to growth, the new car registrations are only a little more than 20% of the 2007 volume, when over 312,000 new cars were registered.
New car registrations stood at 4,590 in December, 18% fewer than in the same time in 2013. December was the second month of decline in 2014, following the 6% drop in April.
Second hand car imports bucked the yearly trend and ended up 1% to almost 223,400 units, despite going down 2% in January-November. The switch to growth was because of the more than 22,500 second hand cars registered in December, 34% more than in the year-ago month.
The data about actual sales have not been published yet but will mostly likely stand at some 7,000 units, taking the total cars sold by dealers to almost 81,000. If sales continued the upward trend, December could be the 18th month of growth in a row.
“These volumes are far from the 2007 peak when more than 360,000 cars were sold. As automotive sector business has been dwindling in the past six years, the 2014 results are a breath of fresh air for the auto industry,” the officials of the Automotive Manufacturers and Importers Association said.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)