OREANDA-NEWS. Analytic agency "AUTOSTAT" has conducted the research and it made a rating of the most popular vehicles that are bought for taxi services. The study covered approximately 100 of the largest companies that are providing taxi services and rental cars in more than 70 Russian regions.

During the period from 2012 to 2015 in Russia, these companies purchased about 50 thousand cars. At the same time, over 70% of these sales were in Moscow, Moscow region and St. Petersburg.

The most popular model that is used as a taxi is Hyundai Solaris, the share of which is 12.4% of total sales for the last four years. The second place in the ranking is occupied by Renault Logan, the share of which was 10.7%. The third position is occupied by Skoda Octavia (8,2%).

The five leaders also includes the Ford Focus and Volkswagen Polo (7,3% and 6%, respectively). Together with the KIA Rio (4,9%), Nissan Almera (2,5%) and Ford Galaxy (2,3%), the top-10 includes also the domestic LADA Granta and Chinese Lifan Solano (2.4% at each model).

Despite the fall of the Russian car market, which has been going on for three years, sales of cars for taxi services show an increase for the second year in a row. At the end of 2015, this figure rose by 11.4%.

As the director of the analytic agency "AUTOSTAT", Sergei Tselikov, noted, the growth of sales of cars that are used in taxi parcs is connected with the necessity of their more frequent replacement due to the presence of large runs. So, if the national average length of ownership of the car is 4 - 5 years, after the use as taxis the car is usually sold after 2 - 3 years from the start of operation, and many "instances" are put up for sale after a year of work in the taxi.