Over 82,000 new units were sold in the first three months of 2008, compared to which sales in this year’s first quarter registered a 57 percent decline.
Fourmont indicated that the total auto market, sharply hit by the economic crisis, will drop by an annual 45 percent in 2009, to some 180,000 units and to half the level in 2007, the local market’s best year in the history of car sales. Fourmont’s estimate is identical to that forwarded by GM South East Europe, importer of the Opel and Chevrolet brands.
The car market registered a double-digit drop last year from its 2007 level, to some 330,000 units, after seven years of growth, with annual increases of up to 30 percent.
Dacia car and commercial vehicle sales plunged 59.5 percent on the domestic market in this year’s first quarter, to 8,682 units. In March, Dacia sales totaled 4,073 units, down 44 percent year-on-year. In February, Romania became Dacia’s third-largest market, after France and Germany.
