In all, Dacia and Ford’s production amounted to about EUR1.6 billion in the first quarter, according to ZF’s calculations.
The car production on the local market was influenced by Ford’s operations at its Craiova plant (southern Romania) for the first time in the first quarter. The carmaker assembled some 22,200 B-Max vehicles in January – March, with production peaking at about 8,500 units in March. Ford’s best month in Craiova so far was last October, when it assembled almost 11,000 cars.
The carmaker halved production of B-Max by dropping the second shift in November and had it increase from 250 cars to 365 cars a day in January after additional automation investment. Production went further up to more than 400 cars a day in March.
“Orders for B-Max increased in Europe in March, and the plant picked up the pace to assemble the cars,” Ford Romania officials said.
The first quarter of this year was a time of growth for Dacia, both in terms of sales in Europe and in terms of production at its Mioveni plant. Its only important market that shrank was Romania.
Under the circumstances, the production of the Mioveni plant went up by 5.4% to 85,500 cars and exports fell 10% to 67,700 units in the first quarter.
Duster continues to account for almost 40% of Dacia’s production or 34,200 units, though down 15% on the year-ago period. The new Logan saw the highest production increase by almost 80% to over 24,000 cars, while the second Sandero generation increased by 67% to over 27,300 cars.
Dacia might begin assembling the new Logan MCV in its Mioveni plant in May, which will probably drive production up by at least 7,000 cars a month.
Dacia boasted third highest growth in Europe in the first quarter of the year, after an increase of almost 15% in the same time of 2012, reaching about 65,000 cars according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA). Only Honda (19% increase to 43,700 units) and Jaguar (25% rise to 8,600 cars) beat Dacia. The European market shrank by almost 10% to less than 3.1 million cars in the first quarter. Dacia’s market share in Europe went up from 1.7% to 2.1%.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)