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Most of the new cars are imported using other mechanisms 

The share of new passenger cars imported to Russia by legal entities without the permission of the copyright holder (parallel import) during 2023 in the range of dealers amounted to no more than a third of the total supply. This was told by the interlocutors of Vedomosti in dealer holdings. 

According to the director of retail sales of Avilon Ilya Petrov, now the share of parallel imports from the total supply of new cars may be 7-10%. "We have recorded stable customer demand for models imported by parallel import throughout 2023. And today we do not observe a trend of declining interest in this segment," he notes.

Sales of new cars from the Fresh Auto dealer, brought by parallel import, amounted to 2% of the total demand in January – October 2023, a representative of the company told Vedomosti. The dealer delivers foreign cars not represented in Russia from China, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan on pre-order. Now 1300 new and used cars are available for order on the Fresh Auto platform, the interlocutor explains.

The operating director of Klyuchavto, Tatiana Fornasova, said that parallel imports account for a third of the dealer's entire offer for new cars.                    

Alternative imports, which include the import of cars by individuals, accounted for 10% of new car sales in October 2022 and 11% in October 2023, according to Autostat data. In total, 43,308 and 112,238 new passenger cars were sold in Russia in October of this and last year, respectively. 

Data on the relatively small role of parallel imports in the sales of new cars also confirm the figures of Avito Auto. As of November 1, the share of offers for new cars brought by parallel import amounted to only 5% of all ads placed on the site in the corresponding category, follows from the presentation of the online platform, which Vedomosti got acquainted with. In quantitative terms, this is about 10,000 cars, which is 5 times more than in November 2022. We are talking about cars that were brought by dealers and placed on Avito with the help of a personal manager in a separate personal account, explains Artem Sokolov, an analyst at Avito Auto.

The expert added that in addition to parallel imports, there is still a significant amount of supply of vehicles from professional sellers – individuals and legal entities who "on a regular basis" are engaged in the sale of cars. During the year, they put up 8,500 cars on the site, another 1,400 units are offered by private individuals. But neither of them can be classified as parallel import suppliers, since in most cases the actual import of a car into the country is carried out by an individual. On Avito, such ads fall into the section of cars with mileage, Sokolov explained. 

Import of passenger cars to Russia has tripled 

The growth of scrap collection and domestic production will slow down this dynamic in 2024. 

According to Avito Auto's own data, this trading platform occupies the 1st place in terms of the volume of posted ads for the sale of passenger cars in Russia. In total, over the last full month – October – 215,000 ads for the sale of new passenger cars were placed on the service. 

The import of goods without the permission of the copyright holder was allowed to legal entities by government Decree No. 506 of March 29, 2022 against the background of the departure of many foreign brands from Russia after the start of the special operation in Ukraine. The list of products available for parallel import is maintained by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Now it has more than 50 car brands, including Volkswagen, Skoda, Renault, Mercedes-Benz, Land Rover, Lexus, Infinity, Rolls-Royce, etc. The Ministry of Industry and Trade did not provide comments.

For the automotive industry, this mechanism started working in the second half of last year, when the necessary regulations were adopted. We are talking about Resolution No. 855 of May 12, 2022, which regulates the procedure for importing a car into the country according to the conclusion on the evaluation of a single vehicle (certifies the safety of a car imported into the country). He also set a deadline before which parallel import of cars will be allowed – so far it is February 1,2024.

Since October 2023, the government has begun to tighten the requirements for this procedure. Then amendments to Resolution No. 855 began to take effect, which significantly complicate the parallel import of cars of those brands that are officially represented on our market. In addition, at the end of October, updated rules for collecting scrap collection from cars imported by individuals for personal use began to take effect. They are designed to limit the resale of cars purchased abroad to third parties in Russia.

All this, combined with the scrappage indexed since August 1, has made parallel imports economically impractical for many market players (in addition to the supply of cars on pre-orders). Two large dealer holdings – Avtodom and Avtospeccenter - have followed this path. In November, they announced that they would stop keeping stocks of cars brought by parallel import, and would deliver them only on pre-orders.

Parallel imports will most likely be curtailed in the near future, says Sergey Udalov, Executive Director of Autostat. He admits that only large players will remain on the market, who will be able to buy cars cheaper and offer the most favorable conditions for buyers.

Parallel imports should come to naught, becoming more and more a niche story, agrees auto expert Vladimir Bespalov. The idea of parallel imports was originally to saturate the market during a sharp collapse in supply in 2022, he recalls. But as the production of vehicles in Russia is restored, the need to protect the domestic market is growing, in addition, there are official imports from friendly countries, he concluded.

Source: https://www.vedomosti.ru/auto/articles/2023/11/28/1008041-parallelnii-import-ne-smog-zavoevat-avtorinok?utm_campaign=newspaper_28_11_2023&utm_medium=email&utm_source=vedomosti