Baltic, Car market, Good for Business, Transport

Lithuanian market was the fastest-growing one and remained in second position in the region (+22.6% to 4’541 units), Latvian market was the smallest, but it continued to grow quite rapidly (+16.2% to 3’826 units), meanwhile Estonian market was growing significantly slower than other two (+5.3%), but this country was the obvious leader by volume (6’762 units).

New light-vehicle registrations in the Baltic States increased 12.9% to 27’951 units in the first half 2014. All three countries posted positive results and trend was almost the same as in the II quarter: the fastest growth in the first half 2014 was in Lithuania (+22.4% to 8’390 units), Estonia was the largest by far, but slowest-growing market (+3.8% to 12’284 units) while Latvian one grew by 19.7% to 7’277 and remained the smallest in the region.

Estonia still is the largest market in the Baltic States, accounting for 43.9% of the total, while Lithuania and Latvia respectively had 30.0% and 26.0% shares. When calculated per 1’000 inhabitants, Lithuania remains in the worst position: its result is just 2.86, while Latvian one is 3.64 and Estonia is clear leader here with 9.34.

There were 24’165 passenger cars (+12.4%) and 3’786 light commercial vehicles (+15.9%) registered in the Baltic States in the first half 2014. The best performing makes (brands) were Toyota (3’546 units), Volkswagen (3’334 units), Skoda (2’541 units), Renault (1’760 units) and Peugeot (1’623 units). The most popular models were Skoda Octavia (1’048 units), Fiat 500 (951 units), Nissan Qashqai (878 units), Toyota RAV4 (763 units) and Volkswagen Golf (702 units).

The research is based on the common European-wide methodology, which considers a vehicle as being new only when its first-overall and first-in-country registration dates are the same. It counts so-called brutto volume as it pays no regard to any kind of shortterm registrations and de-registrations, and these are the subjects of another dedicated research.