OREANDA-NEWS. Sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in Russia in December fell by 1% to 145,668 vehicles. According to the Association of European Businesses, on the basis of the whole 2016 Russian car market fell by 11% to 1 million 425 thousand 721 cars.

As noted in the AEB, the almost achieved balance in sales in December of the last year draws a line under a similar balance in the fourth quarter (-0.9% vs. the same period of the last year). By comparing with double-digit of fall in the first nine months of the year – it is a good result. The market as a whole is still in need of a positive reversal, but, obviously, it is in the final process of searching the bottom. AEB hopes that in 2017 the market has the potential to complete a 4-year period of decline and return to moderate growth. It is expected that the total market size will be equal to 1.48 million vehicles, up 4% compared to the last year.

Leadership in the Russian market is kept by AvtoVAZ, which sold 266 296 vehicles in 2016, which is less by 1% than a year ago. Second place in terms of sales is occupied by KIA - sales of 149,567 cars (-9%) provided the Korean brand with the leadership in the market of foreign cars. The third line is kept by Hyundai with 145,254 sold vehicles, up by 10% compared with 2015. It is followed by Renault - cars of this brand were chosen by 117,230 customers (-3%). Toyota closes the top-five, whose sales were 94,568 vehicles (-4%). The top-10 of best selling brands in the last year also included Volkswagen (74221 units, -5%), Nissan (70,464 units, -23%), GAS (55803 units, + 9%), Skoda (55386 units, + 1%) and UAZ (48848 units, + 1%).