In 2025, Russia’s car market has been showing a significant decline in sales. The first half of the year was especially difficult for sellers.
During that period, sales fell by 27% compared with the same period a year earlier, reaching 546,000 vehicles.
Sergei Tselikov, head of the analytical agency Autostat, told the outlet Vetor that several negative factors converged at the beginning of the year.
“We call it a perfect storm,” Tselikov said.
According to him, the first factor was a sharp increase in the key interest rate. As a result, keeping money in bank deposits at high interest became more attractive than spending it on a car purchase.
The second factor, he said, was the political mood at the start of the year: after Donald Trump came in, discussions began about whether car brands might return. Because of this, some potential buyers shifted into a wait-and-see mode.
The third factor was large inventory stock. At the start of the year, dealers had nearly 500,000 vehicles in storage and began cutting prices. But, as Tselikov explained, that only reinforced consumer caution: buyers expected to save more money while deposit rates stayed high and car prices could fall even further.