Page 113 - Romania 100

The French company Renault coming in Romania and the takeover of the Dacia plant in Mioveni in 2004 was undoubtedly a success. If today we can say, through the voice of Constantin Stroe, the president
of ACAROM, the Romanian Association of Automobile Manufacturers,
that the automotive assembly and components industry exceeded EUR 20 billion and is likely to reach EUR 30 billion in three-four years’ time, this is also due to the transaction concluded more than 10 years ago. The car market in Romania seems to be
a winning bet. In 2017, Romania’s exports amounted to EUR
62.5 billion, of which exports of cars and equipment accounted for 46.4%.
The 9 exporters in the automotive industry are Dacia Automobiles, Star Assembly (Daimler/Mercedes to Sebeş), Ford Romania, Honeywell, Continental Automotive Systems, Autoliv, Flextronix, Continental Automotive Romania and Takara Romania.
The Romanian car market continues the 2018 positive trend
In September this year,
a volume of 15,738 units delivered (the best September in the last 10 years) was 7.7% more than in the same month of the previous year, according to a press release from the Association of Automotive Producers of Importers (APIA). As a result, after the first
9 months of this year, the
total volume of car deliveries reached 134,831 units, 20.2% more than in the same period of last year, the highest volume of car sales registered in the first 9 months in the last 10 years (in 2009, the first year of economic recession, only 103.592 units were delivered).
In Romania, car purchases are mainly carried out by legal entities, which accounts for 63% of the total car purchases registered in
the first 9 months of this year. It is worth noting, however, that the number
of cars purchased by individuals in these 9 months of 2018 (42,127 units) is approximately 29.3% higher than the same period last year (32,583 units).
“With regard to the category of used passenger cars (with imports largely non-taxed), we find that in September 2018, their volume decreased by 15.0% compared to the same month last year. As a result, for the first nine months of 2018, we recorded a total number of 346,918 used cars registered in Romania, which is 8.3% lower than that for the
similar period of 2017.
Some improvement can be noticed however with regard to the age of imported used cars as a result of the increase in the volume (+ 27.3%) in the segment below 7 years (less polluting) and decreases of approximately 23.8% of cars older than 12 years. However, the number of used cars older than 10 years represented,
in the first 9 months of 2018, approximately 61.1% (meaning 211,976 units) of the total of 346,918 imported units, which contributes to maintaining a high average age of the car fleet in Romania (about 15 years), which is still one of the oldest in Europe”, the press release stated.
Deliveries of new cars: Dacia ranking first
According to APIA, 134,831 units were delivered in the first nine months of the
year, an increase of 20.2% compared to the same period in 2017, out of which 113,727 passenger cars (+ 22.3% compared to 2017) and 21,104 commercial vehicles (+ 9.7% versus 2017).
The first ranking brand (cars + commercial vehicles) is Dacia, with 38,211 units, followed by Volkswagen, with 12,458 units, Ford 10,222 units, Renault 10,184 units and Skoda 9,923 units.
As far as cars are concerned, Dacia ranked first with 35,781 units (31.5% market
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