OREANDA-NEWS. According to the Association of European Businesses, sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in Russia in March fell by 42.5% to 139,850 vehicles. For the first three months of 2015 the Russian car market fell by 36.3% to 383,691 vehicles.

As noted in the AEB, sales in March were bad, but not that much worse than it was expected. The long-predicted collapse of consumer demand, which is now seen, was caused by excessive purchases at the end of the last year and it was added by a significant increase in prices at the beginning of this year. Sooner or later the situation will stabilize, but that time has not come yet, according to the association. According to the forecast of AEB, in 2015 the Russian car market will be 1,890,000 cars, which is less by 24% than the last year.

Leadership in the Russian car market is kept by AvtoVAZ, it sold 27423 cars the last month, which is less by 23% than a year ago. Second place in terms of sales is kept by Hyundai – sales of 13,901 cars (-15%) provided a Korean brand with the leadership in the market of foreign cars. The third line is occupied by KIA with 12121 sold cars (-32%). Next Toyota comes - cars of this brand were chosen by 9731 buyers (-34%). Renault still closes the "top five" of leaders, which sold 9507 cars (-43%). The Top-10 of best-selling brands by the results of March also includes Nissan (8635 units, -51%), Volkswagen (6150 units, -57%), Skoda (4565 units, -41%), GAZ (4267 units, -32%) and Mercedes-Benz (4015 units, -3%).