Mitsubishi, Ford, Kia among winners as Russia sales rise 25%

MOSCOW -- Russian sales rose 25 percent in February to 133,177 vehicles, the Association of European Businesses (AEB) lobby group said.

All major brands showed significant rises. Mitsubishi saw the biggest gain with sales soaring 97 percent, while Ford sales jumped 50 percent.

Kia sales increased 44 percent, while Hyundai was just behind with a 43 percent jump. Skoda registrations leapt 39 percent, followed by market leader Lada, whose volume rose 37 percent.

Renault's sales were up 17 percent, while VW brand volume increased 11 percent rise. Toyota sales grew 3 percent, while Nissan registrations rose 19 percent.

Download PDF, above right, for February and 2-month sales by brand, automaker and group.

In the first two months, 235,641 new cars were sold in Russia, AEB data showed.

"Over 27 percent improvement in the first two months are an impressive turnaround for the market which was battered by bad news until just one year ago," Joerg Schreiber, chairman of the AEB Automobile Manufacturers Committee, said in a note.

Schreiber said AEB retains positive outlook for car sales in 2018, adding that it would be reasonable to expect the annual pace of sales growth to slow "as a result of the growing base effect applying from March last year.

AEB gave no forecast for a 2018 sales increase.

Analysts at the PwC consultancy in Russia said they expected Russia's new-car sales to grow 11 percent this year.

Russian car sales were 1.6 million units in 2017, rising 12 percent from the previous year.

Reuters contributed to this report

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