Going in circles: the used car market has set two records

Last month, the Russian used car market grew by 18%. At the same time, a record number of used cars were imported into our country. At the same time, the main share of sales is occupied by old models, discontinued, which Russians resell to each other. In general, there have been no radical changes in the used car market, but certain transformations are still possible at the beginning of next year, experts believe. For more information, see the Izvestia article.

The "secondary" is on the rise

Last month, Russians purchased 652,998 used cars. Such data is provided by the analytical agency Autostat. This is 18% more than in September and 7.9% higher than in October last year, which is a record high since 2007, the agency said. According to the results of ten months, 5,073 million used cars were sold in our country, which is 1.7% more than in January-October 2024.

Last month, 59.9 thousand used cars were imported to Russia. This is also a record for the entire more than 25-year history of import monitoring, Autostat experts say. Experts largely explain this result by the "information noise" that has developed around the upcoming introduction of a new recycling fee: importers are trying to introduce as many cars as possible before December 1.

—Imports of used cars in October increased by 55% compared to the level of a year ago and by 24% compared to the September result," the press service of the analytical agency states.

Since the beginning of the year, according to Sergey Tselikov, General Director of Autostat, 382.9 thousand used passenger cars have been imported into our country, which is 15% more than in the same period last year.

— Despite a 10% decrease in supplies, Japan will remain the main importer of used cars to Russia. 171.5 thousand units were imported, which is almost 45% of the total volume," he said.

In addition, the volume of imports of used cars from South Korea increased by 88% (86.1 thousand cars; 22.5% of imports), and the supply of used cars from China increased immediately by 303% to 58.4 thousand units, which is 15.2% of the total number of used models imported into our country, Sergey said. Tselikov.

Native "sevens"

Despite the increase in used car imports, the Lada brand still holds the lead in the secondary car market: last month, 149.2 thousand used cars of this brand were purchased. Toyota is in second place with a result of 66.2 thousand cars. Kia and Hyundai are on the third and fourth lines (39.6 thousand and 37.4 thousand, respectively). This is followed by Nissan (28.7 thousand units), Volkswagen (28.2 thousand units), Chevrolet (22.7 thousand) and Honda (22 thousand). Renault and BMW brands complete the top ten with results of 21.6 thousand and 21.1 thousand units, respectively.

The Vaz Seven (Lada-2107), which was discontinued in the spring of 2012, remains the leader of the Russian secondary market: 13.9 thousand people purchased this model last month. Kia Rio is coming on her heels — 13.1 thousand cars sold in October. The result is slightly worse (12.5 thousand units) her "twin" is a Hyundai Solaris. This is followed by the Ford Focus (10.6 thousand cars) and Lada 4x4 Niva (10.5 thousand cars). The top ten most popular used models in October also included Toyota Corolla (10.4 thousand), Lada-2114 Samara-2 (10.3 thousand), Toyota Camry (9.4 thousand), Priora (9.2 thousand) and Grant (8.4 thousand copies).

Reselling to each other

The peculiarity of the Russian secondary car market is that the bulk of their transactions are for older models, many of which have not been produced for a long time, said Igor Morzharetto, partner at the Autostat agency.

— A significant part of the cars are Sevens, Samaras, Priors, which have already been discontinued. These cars "go in circles", having changed more than one owner. The situation with "Foci" and "Solaris" is slightly better, although these models are also no longer being produced, but at least now they change most often the second or third owner. What unites all these cars is, as a rule, high mileage and not the best technical condition," Igor Morzharetto emphasized.

Maxim Kadakov, the editor-in-chief of Za Rulem magazine, agrees with him. The basis of the current secondary car market is now occupied by models that used to be bestsellers among new cars, he noted.

— Lada, Hyundai, Kia, Renault, Nissan, Toyota, Volkswagen — in previous years they occupied 60% of the new car market. Now they occupy about the same amount on the secondary market. In fact, this is a "mirror" of the new car market from seven to ten years ago, - said the editor—in-chief of Za Rulem.

Taking into account the increased time of car ownership recently, it is definitely not worth expecting serious changes in the structure of the used car market, in the role of the mass appearance of Chinese models on it, in the next couple of years, experts say. They call the increase in imports of used models to our country a positive but temporary trend. According to Igor Morzharetto, it does not have a significant impact on the overall picture.

— Of course, almost 400,000 used cars imported into Russia since the beginning of the year are fueling the market with relatively fresh models. But considering the more than 5 million used cars sold during this time, this is essentially a drop in the bucket. She is not in a position to update the "bushny" park, " he told Izvestia.

Market Transformation

Nikita Kolesnikov, a representative of a Japanese export company in Russia, believes that the record volume of used car imports recorded in October is likely to continue in November. This is due to the desire of importers and end customers to have time to take out the car before the new rules for calculating the recycling fee come into force, he explains.

— The beginning of next year will be a period of correction and a certain transformation of the used car market. The import and supply of powerful models will decrease dramatically. At the same time, there will be an effect from China's tightening policy regarding alternative imports of cars, which will lead to higher prices for them and longer delivery times. As a result, the market is facing a period of adaptation and transformation: a shift in focus to less powerful models, to cars from the domestic fleet, and the search by importers for new ways to import cars into our country. Thus, the growth period of the used car market segment will be replaced by a reformatting phase," Nikita Kolesnikov predicts.