Although the average car age in the Czech Republic is about 13.5 years, sales of new cars remain relatively flat, hovering around 150,000 per year. Most sales are for small cars, clearly not the most profitable segment of the industry, and it will be interesting to see when other segments start taking a bigger share. VAT-driven purchases (namely of MPVs or SUVs) are at least as popular as in past years, and EU accession brought new possibilities for importing cars from other EU countries to save costs.
Last few years have shown encouraging signs in the sale of new passenger cars in the Czech Republic. The sale of new cars significantly rose by 6.6% in 2007 and touched 121,991 in 11 months. This fact is given by the Association of Automotive Industries (SAP).
The sale of new light utility vehicles was 54,360 Units, a growth of 23.2%, while the sale of used light utility vehicles reached to 9,662 Units. In case of used passenger car sales the figures reached 199,702 units. There is a phenomenal increase of around 18.9% in 2007 in the import of used cars. The change in the trend of car sales in the Czech Republic reflects the increasing number of registered cars in the country. From January to November 2007, 10,497 new lorries (an increase of 15.75%) and 3,993 used lorries (an increase of 21.8%) were registered in the country.
Steady growth in the Czech Republic's economy has escalated the personal disposable income of people to double in local currency terms. As a result, people are utilizing their money for buying new as well as used passenger cars to make their lives comfortable. Another factor that significantly contributed to rise in car sales is aggressive marketing and easy accessibility of credit.
Launch of new models in the Czech Republic market would accelerate the sales of passenger car in the country. According to a recent report, "Passenger Car Market - A Global Review (2006)" published by RNCOS, the market would continue to grow in coming years. Easy availability of credit given by automotive financial organizations is encouraging people to buy cars as per their choices. With the arrival of automotive financial organizations, now people have multiple choices as compared to previous times when they had only one option to taking personal loans from banks.
