Sales of new cars and trucks in Ukraine will grow by an average of 20-30% in 2023 – expert

KYIV. Jan 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Sales of new cars and trucks in Ukraine this year will grow on average by 20-30%, and for some brands by 50%, compared to 2022, when sales of cars fell by 62%, and trucks – by 30% from 2021, predicts director of the Ukrainian Association of Automobile Importers and Dealers (VAAID) Oleh Nazarenko.

"Despite the war unleashed by the bloody aggressor, the fall of the economy and the forced emigration of millions of Ukrainians, the car market survived. Compared to 103,000 new cars sold in 2021, the market decline in 2022 was 62% – to 40,000, but the car market survived!" he wrote on Facebook.

He recalled that similar drops in the market have already been noted, for example, in the 1990s, 30,000-35,000 cars were sold in Ukraine a year, in 2015 only 46,000 cars were sold.

"But immediately after such falls, the market grew and I hope that it will continue to do so now, because already in December last year more than 4,000 cars were sold, although in previous months sales amounted to no more than 3,000-3,200 cars per month," he noted.

At the same time, the head of the VAAID stated, the truck market declined less – by 30%, since the business "needs freight transportation, both for deliveries to the front and within the country."

"The bus market fell the most – by 80%, since earlier most buses were bought for budget funds, and with the outbreak of war, the budget stopped allocating money for the purchase of buses. However, due to the crisis in the energy sector and the refusal of electric transport in many cities (trams and trolleybuses) I predict the growth of the bus market in 2023," Nazarenko wrote.

According to him, the trends in regional sales have also changed: if before the war, most cars were sold in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odesa and Lviv, then after the start of the war, Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa ranked first.