Dacia wins again: sales rise in Germany while overall car market declines

Latest figures show that while Germany's car market is in an overall state of decline, sales of Romania's Dacia cars are on the up in the country. New registrations of Dacias in Germany increased by 6.7 percent to 14,609 units in the first four months of 2013, according to the German vehicle registration authority KBA, quoted by Romanian news agency Mediafax. Meanwhile, overall registrations of new cars declined by 8.5 percent to 958,401 vehicles over the same period. Dacia's market share over the four months was unchanged at 1.5 percent, but there was a 33 percent surge in new registrations of Dacias during April, giving the car manufacturer a 1.6 percent market share in Germany. A similar pattern was seen in France, Dacia's main market, an overall fall in new car sales but a 23 percent rise in registrations of Dacias to 30,352 vehicles in the first four months of this year. It was the largest advance recorded by any car manufacturer on the French market for the period. In Germany, Renault, Dacia's parent company, saw a 5.2 percent fall in new registrations over the four-month period, while German market leader Volkswagen also an 11.5 percent decline. The German and French results are consistent with recent European figures for car registrations, which have seen Dacia gaining against a backdrop of overall decline in the car market. Dacia saw its net profit up to some EUR 62 million in 2012, a growth of 0.7 percent on the year before when expressed in RON. In EUR, the net profit actually dropped by 4.1 percent. Meanwhile, its turnover was down 8 percent when expressed in EUR, to some EUR 2.8 billion. When expressed in RON, the drop was of 3.3 percent. With 13,652 employees at the end of 2012, Dacia spent some EUR 173 million on salaries, resulting in an expense of EUR 12,700 per employee a year. The salary expenses were up by some EUR 9.4 million during 2012. Social insurance expenses were up to EUR 41.2 million, a growth of EUR 1.8 million on 2011. Dacia runs the factory in Mioveni, where it produced 307,000 units last year, down on 327,000 units in 2011. editor@romania-insider.com