Stocks of unsold Lada cars reached 100 thousand units

Due to the fall of the car market in Russia at the beginning of this year, the total stock of finished Lada cars reached 100 thousand units. This was stated by AvtoVAZ head Maxim Sokolov on the sidelines of the Forum on Regulatory Policy of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Izvestia correspondent reports on February 25.

"The stocks that have been created in the market today still exceed 500 thousand cars and, moreover, have a tendency to increase. Despite the decline in exports, the pace of sales is not enough to reverse the trend to increase this indicator. AvtoVAZ inventories are close to the 100 thousand car mark and with such a high interest load, they represent a weighing factor for the financial model as a whole. Our goal is to reach the mark of 27 thousand cars sold in February, plus or minus we are moving towards this goal. It will be much better than the market average," Sokolov said.

According to the head of AvtoVAZ, the situation with a runoff of about 60 thousand cars is considered normal at good sales rates. He called the situation on the Russian car market alarming.

"At the end of last year, many people still did not believe that the market could fall to 1.3 million cars. But today it is practically a reality. We can clearly see the market as a whole, AvtoVAZ is defending its position here and moving slightly better than the market. It is generally going worse than in February 2024. Whether the market will overcome the bar of 100 thousand units this month is a big question. We need to think seriously about what measures should be taken jointly to avoid a dramatic fall," the top manager said.

Sokolov noted that AvtoVAZ cannot dump and sell cars at a loss below cost, as it will lead to deterioration of the financial model. And those companies whose center of profit and surplus value formation is not the Russian market, are able to dumping at the expense of business that brings profit in other markets, he added.

Scraping through the coffers: new car sales in Russia continue to fall

However, still exceeds the numbers from a year ago

February 5, it became known that in the first month of 2025 in Russia was sold 89.1 thousand new passenger cars. This is 11% higher than the figures for January 2024, but 38.5% less than in December last year, when 123.4 thousand cars were purchased in Russia.

On January 13, the Committee of Automobile Manufacturers of the Association of European Businesses (AEB) stated that in 2025 sales of new cars in Russia may decrease by 15% compared to the previous year. Thus, the market volume may approach the 2016 figure.