Car registrations went down by 12% in the first ten months of the year, to almost 55,900 cars, according to the statistics of the Driving License and Vehicle Registration Department. Registrations were down 13% at the end of October compared with the same time last year, to almost 6,800 cars, making October the best month of the second half of the year, which witnessed the lowest decline in five months.
Whereas new car registrations dropped again, second-hand car registrations increased. The cut in the pollution tax early in the year helped car exports almost double in the first ten months of the year. They increased by more than 80% on the year-ago period to 136,500 cars.
Twenty of the over forty brands available on the local market posted growth in January-October from the same time of 2011. Only three of them were volume brands, i.e. Hyundai, 2,500 new cars registered (over 30% increase), Ford, almost 4,500 cars (22% more) and Kia, 719 cars (52% more).
The top five brands by growth were Jeep, up from seven to 111 cars after imports moved to AutoItalia last year, Bentley, up from one car to four and Jaguar and Infiniti, up 204% and 140%. Porsche, too, saw significant growth of almost 70% to 155 cars, which means it beat the crisis now that volumes are becoming better than those of 2007.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)