New car sales in Romania, which include both passenger cars and commercial vehicles, grew by 23.3 percent in the first four months of 2014 compared to the same period last year, to just over 27,000 units, according to data released by the Romanian Automotive Manufacturers and Importers Association (APIA). Over 80 percent of sales volumes come from Romanian companies.

What is more important is that in April 2014 sales were up for the tenth month in a row compared to the same month in the previous year, a situation that didn’t occur on the local market in the last five years, according to APIA.

Another encouraging sign for the market is that used cars registrations for the period January - April 2014 were down 10 percent compared to the first four months in 2013, to 64,286 units. However, used cars sales are still 3.5 times higher than new car sales.

Out of the 27,000 news auto vehicles sold in Romania during the first four months, 22,000 are passenger cars. The growth rate for this segment was 21.7 percent.

Romania brand Dacia continues to be market leader, with 6,939 passenger cars sold, up by a third compared to the same period last year. Second iis Volkswagen, with almost 2,189 units sold, which is a 5 percent increase. Skoda comes close with 2,149 units sold, 42 percent more than in the first four months of 2013. These three share about half of the market, with the other half divided between some thirty other brands.

Ford sold 1,500 cars and posted the highest growth, of 56 percent. Next come Renault, Opel, Toyota, Peugeot, Hyundai and Mercedes Benz.

The number of auto vehicles that were produced in Romania in the first four months went down by 3.4 percent compared to the same period last year, to 142,123 units. Almost 120,000 units were produced by Dacia and some 22,200 units come from the Ford factory in Craiova. Exports grew by 4.6 percent, to 130,547 units.

Dacia remains the top performer of the European car market with a 40.4 percent growth in new cars registrations, in the first four months, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA).

Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com