FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL

Posted On

14
September
2021

Online demand for cars in Ukraine grows by over 23% annually over past three years

KYIV. Sept 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Online demand for cars in Ukraine for three years, from July 2018 to June 2021, increased by 1.5 times, while over the last year (July 2020 – June 2021) people were interested in automotive topics on the Internet 23.6% more often, to 471.8 million times, according to the results of market research by the digital consulting agency Olshansky & Partners.

"This is one of the most massive online markets in Ukraine, which has been demonstrating a growing trend for several years. And quarantine restrictions in early spring 2020 only spurred the interest of Ukrainians in the topic. Thus, at the moment, the preconditions have been formed for maintaining the current trend in the future," development director and author of the research idea Anna Artemenko said.

The study notes that the share of commercial demand (selling, buying or renting) for cars online is also growing, but the growth rate of demand with expressed intent has slowed by 5.8% since mid-2020. From July 2020 to June 2021, the volume of commercial demand for auto brands amounted to 26.4 million requests.

On the other hand, analysts say, the quarantine restrictions of 2020 provoked a short-term jump in commercial demand by 1.7 times, and it can be assumed that the repetition of such measures in the future will have a similar effect.

Volkswagen is the clear leader in terms of the amount of demand on the Internet: it is searched for about 1.4 million times a month or 17.4 million times a year. The three most popular also include Mercedes and BMW. However, Toyota is leading in terms of online demand growth – more by 59.68% in 2021.

At the same time, Ukrainians are most often looking for VAZ cars on the Internet for buying/selling/renting, which are in seventh place in popularity – more than 440,000 times a month or 5.3 million times a year.

In terms of the growth rate of commercial demand in the summer of 2021, Toyota was in the lead – more by 50%.

"A feature of commercial demand for brands is that its share in the case of some budget cars is phenomenally high. It reaches 42%, 46%, 62% or even 68% of the total demand for a particular brand," experts say.

The study states that this year interest in electric cars has doubled compared to 2018, accounting for 1.3% of the total demand for cars on the Internet: Ukrainians search for electric cars on average 511,000 times a month, or 6.1 million times a year.

"The trend remains increasing, which creates the preconditions for an increase in demand for this type of car in the future," the study says.

The most popular electric car is Tesla. On average, it is searched on Google more than 275,000 times a month, or 3.3 million times a year. At the same time, the share of requests with the intention to buy Tesla is above the average in the market – 18.6% (more than 51,000 requests per month or 612,000 per year).

The second most popular electric car is BMW. Since 2018, demand for it has grown 2.2 times, to 67,000 requests per month.

However, in terms of demand growth, Porsche is in the lead, demand for which has grown from 1,700 to 24,000 requests per month over three years.

According to the study, in three years, since mid-2018, there has been a change in the leading country in demand for used cars: if three years ago it was Lithuania and Poland, now it is the United States, which as of mid-2021 accounted for 27%.

The demand for American cars has grown by 33% in three years (from 89,000 requests per month to 119,000), and the growth spurt occurred in April-May 2020. At the same time, there was a decline in interest in the so-called cars with European license plates – cars from Lithuania (by 59%), Poland (by 62%) and Germany.

At the same time, cars from Ukraine are invariably popular: they are searched on Google more than 320,000 times a month, and over three years this demand has grown by 6% (from 272,500 to 288,000 requests per month).