According to Auto-Dealer-Yekaterinburg, 12,254 new automobiles were sold in Yekaterinburg in January and February 2012, which is 35%, or 3,054 cars more than in the two months of 2011.

7,029 cars were sold in the city in February alone, which was 39%, or 1,961 cars more than a year earlier. Lada is still by far the best-selling make on Yekaterinburg market. At the same time, the share of the Russian brand on the local market is going down: it used to come to 17% at the end of 2011 but amounted to only 14.6% at the end of February 2012.

Significant changes can be observed among the top five best-selling brands. Toyota’s sales outstripped those of Chevrolet, so the former is now No.1 top selling foreign brand and the second best-selling brand in the overall rating. What is more, the difference in sales of Toyota and Chevrolet is becoming increasingly more pronounced, while Daewoo is no longer among the top five as well as the top ten makes.

‘The local demand for automobiles is noticeably shifting from the economy class Renault and Daewoo (very popular for the last three years) towards the more expensive international brand cars manufactured at Russian plants. In addition, the sales of most premium class automobiles are growing almost twice as fast as the market’s average,’ says Auto-Dealer-Yekaterinburg’s Director-General Mikhail Chaplygin.

In fact, Sverdlovsk Region’s sales are increasing 10%-plus faster than the Russian market on the whole. The Russian sales went up by 23% in the two months of 2012 and by 25% in February 2012.