Dacia therefore cements its position as the largest company in Romania by revenue having posted 2.2% growth in the first half of 2015, compared with the same time in 2014, to RON10.02 billion. If the growth pace remained unchanged in the second half, when production was steady and the company started manufacturing new components, the revenue should go up towards RON19.4 billion.
The plant in Mioveni started making a new automated manual transmission for Sandero and Logan in the second half of last year. The net profit rose almost 30% to more than RON245 million in the first half of the year, which was almost as much as the entire profit of 2011, RON275 million.
Automobile Dacia became the largest company in Romania by revenue (RON18.4 billion) for the first time in 2013. Now it is getting ready to cement that position for the third year in a row, since Petrom had already posted 16% decline in revenue in January-September. The only company to have overshot the RON19 billion revenue mark was Petrom in 2012 (RON19.5 billion), its last year as the country’s largest company.
“Dacia’s performance can be explained, on the one hand, by it taking advantage of the opportunities on the European auto market by providing vehicles with a very good quality/price ratio,” says Ionut Simion, Country Managing Partner PwC Romania.
“On the other hand, the carmaker in Mioveni has been constantly innovating and shifted to more complex models, with a higher value added (Dacia Duster, Sandero, the new Logan), which translated into a significant increase in productivity, as well.”
Dacia’s biggest markets are France, Germany, Spain and Italy.
“Dacia gained ground on several big auto markets in Europe especially after the financial crisis when European consumers started paying more attention to their spending on car purchases and chose more affordable yet reliable models. Dacia’s sales also got support from clunkers programs conducted by a number of European countries, to help boost new car sales,” Ionut Simion added.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)