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OREANDA-NEWS. According to the agency “Auto-Dealer-SPb" in January in St. Petersburg it was sold 8,452 new cars and light commercial vehicles, which is less by 23% than in the first month of 2014. Drop in sales of cars in St. Petersburg more than by 20% per one month was recorded last time in August of the last year, when the market fell by 24%. And the record for the sale of less than 9,000 vehicles per month was kept from January of 2011.

Starting in November, the city car market is characterized by its unpredictability. If in December it grew by 9%, then in January, for example, there were two premium brands in the top 10, which could be characterized as an anomaly six months ago. Thus, Mercedes-Benz is in the sixth place, and BMW - the tenth. German brands pushed out of the top-10 the major losers of the last year - Ford and Chevrolet.

The market leader is still French Renault, which reduced, by the way, sales volumes by 17% to 933 cars. Sales growth in the Top-10 was shown by four brands - Hyundai (+ 11%, 814 units), KIA (+ 4%, 766 units), Nissan (+ 7%, 755 units) and the same Mercedes-Benz (+ 54%, 489 units).

"The market structure is changing in favor of brands that have not only local production, but they also capable within the reasonable for today limits to raise the price of cars”, - supposes the general director of “Auto-Dealer-SPb" Michael Chaplygin. – “The success of premium brands can be explained by the fact that consumers tried to invest the savings in more expensive brands, which at some point were close to the price of middle segment cars”.

Some brands have failed in January - Opel, Daewoo, Suzuki, Citroen, Peugeot, Honda, SsangYong reduced their sales by 60-80%.

"Now due to the news of price reducing for the individual brands it starts the waiting period by the consumer of price adjustment from the most importers”, - says Michael Chaplygin. – “So the next month or two, the market will continue to be in a coma. Then, according to the launch of support programs we can hope for a gradual recovery of the market, but by the results of one month in the first half of the year, it, most likely, will not be in the plus”.

The share of St. Petersburg in the total sales of new cars in Russia in January was 7.3%, whereas for the full 2014 it was 7.7%.