International Property News

Passenger car sales rise 13% in February

6th March 2008

New passenger car sales on the Czech market rose by 13 percent to 20,728 units in January-February, the Car Importers Association (SDA) said on its website Thursday.

Demand for light utility vehicles, which also include some passenger cars in terms of statistics, increased by 26 percent to 10,310 units.

Imports of used passenger cars grew by a tenth to 34,517 units in the first two months of the year, and imports of second-hand light utility vehicles increased by a third to 1,983 cars.

Skoda remains the top-selling passenger car, covering one-third of the Czech market. However, its unit sales dropped by eight percent to 6,765 cars, while in the category of light utility vehicles, in which the company also is the market leader, sales grew by 43 percent to 2,566 units.

In the category of passenger cars, Skoda is followed by Ford with a rise of two-thirds to 1,400 units sold, and by Volkswagen with 1,223 cars, up one-fifth against last year.

Among utility vehicles, Volkswagen came second with unit sales stagnant at 1,053, while Ford registered a 1.3 percent growth to 876 cars.

Lorry sales added 29 percent to 1,633 units, with MAN, Mercedes Benz and DAF the top-selling makes. Sale of buses increased by a quarter to 106 vehicles.

Motorcycle sales were 42 percent higher at 2,167 units in the monitored period. Suzuki ranked first with 192 units sold, ahead of Yamaha with 157 units and Honda with 131 units.