New car market most dynamic in Lithuania

  • 2008-01-09
  • From wire reports
VILNIUS - Lithuania's new car market grew at the fastest pace in the Baltics in 2007, inflating over 40 percent for the year.
Though the pace of growth was robust, it was not fast enough to catch up with Latvia and Estonia in terms of numbers of new cars sold.
According to the market research company Autotyrimai, a total of 25,700 new cars were registered in Lithuania last year, up 41 percent.

Latvia moved to the number-one position in terms of units sold, with new car registrations up 29 percent to 36,200 cars. Estonia's market expanded at the slowest pace, or up 22 percent to 35,400 cars, putting the country in second place overall.
Across the Baltic countries, new car registrations increased by 29 percent to 97,300 last year, up from 75,300 in 2006.
Latvia held a 37.2 percent share of the new car market, followed by Estonia with 36.4 percent and Lithuania with 26.4 percent.

The number of new private passenger car registrations per 1,000 people in Lithuania was as low as 6.4, compared to 14.4 in Latvia and 23 in Estonia.
Toyota held the number-one position on the Baltic new car market in 2007, with 11,100 new Toyota vehicles registered in the three countries. Volkswagen was second (8,990 cars) and Honda was third (7,300 cars).
The Baltic list of the most popular car models was lead by Skoda Octavia (3,400 cars), followed by Honda CR-V (2,900) and Honda Civic (2,500). The most popular light commercial vehicle on the market was Renault Master with 1,000 vehicles registered.