Car market, Good for Business, Latvia, Transport

The year 2015 was closed with a 38% growth and first-time registration of 1,468 vehicles with gross vehicle mass (GVM) over 3.5 tons as opposed to 1,062 vehicles in 2014, which is a significant growth and ”clearly a very positive signal,” the association said.

Nevertheless the heavy commercial vehicle market has only returned to the level of 2013 and still remains below the number of new vehicles registered in 2011 and 2012 – 1,520 vehicles and 1,605 vehicles respectively.

In Latvia the market is dominated by vehicles with GVM over 16 tons which represent up to 94% of the market. This segment showed stable growth throughout 2015 with over 100 monthly registrations in most months of the year, the association said.

The leading manufacturers in this segment have traditionally been “Volvo”, “Scania”, “Mercedes-Benz” and “DAF”. Last year “Volvo” remained No. 1, “Mercedes-Benz” climbed to the second place, boasting a 274% rise from 2014, “Scania” fell to the third place and “DAF” dropped out of the Top 3. The year 2015 was also marked by the market concentration with the three leading brands jointly accounting for 88% of the market compared to 73% in 2014.

The three most popular models of heavy commercial vehicles in Latvia in 2015 were “Volvo FH”, “Mercedes-Benz Actros” and “Scania R450”.

The association’s forecast for growth in the heavy commercial vehicle market in 2016 is conservative at 2%.