Sharp increase in new car sales in Croatia.
According to a report by Promocija Plus agency, which is authorized to monitor and analyze the state of Croatian car market, 2,189 new passenger cars were sold in September, which is 9.8 percent more than in September last year. In the first nine months of 2015, 28,817 cars were sold, which represents an increase of 3.8 percent compared to the same period last year, reports Novi List on October 6, 2015.
Considering that car sales are a good indicator of living standards, is it possible that the September results could be one of the signs of economic recovery in Croatia? Given that there were no major fleet orders by government institutions, it seems possible that people are starting to live a little better. However, since less than 40 percent of new cars were bought by "ordinary" citizens, perhaps the conclusion is a bit misleading.
"Although we need a few more days to get an accurate insight into the ownership ratios of sold vehicles, in order to know whether increasing sales are mostly going to private buyers or companies, we believe the increase was mainly due to the sales to businesses. For example, we have sold a fleet of 73 Clio Serviser cars. This conclusion is supported by the fact that the sales of light commercial vehicles have increased by 70 percent compared to the same period last year", said Marina Jelinek, director of public relations at Adriatic Renault Group.
Robert Špiranec from Mazda Croatia shares her views, although the Japanese company rarely has a chance to participate in fleet car sales. "I do not believe that the 10-percent better performance in September is an indicator of recovery, since the year on year cumulative growth is less than 4 percent, or just over a thousand cars in 9 months. Also, 10 percent is actually just about 200 vehicles, which is not many. Such an increase – large in percentage, but small in actual numbers – could be due to accumulated orders of models which have only now been supplied. Therefore, we continue to remain conservative in our market forecasts for 2015, and we do not anticipate any significant growth in 2016 as well", said Špiranec.
