What awaits the “secondary” and what is the future of dealerships? We learned forecasts for 2023 from car market experts

A difficult year for the automotive market is coming to an end, but the approaching 2023 carries more uncertainty than cautious optimism. Should we expect something good? Toward the close of the outgoing twenty-second, we again gathered industry experts, asking them to share their results, observations and forecasts.

Traditionally, for this format, we tried to cover several segments: the sphere of new cars, the secondary market and cars from auctions in Europe and the USA. In addition, the editor-in-chief of av.by Dmitry Makarevich announced the main trends observed in the sale and purchase of used cars.

Igor Succah, General Director of the Atlanta-M Automobile Holding, shared the results of the year and his view of the future.

— How do you assess the past year in terms of sales and demand? What is its difference from the previous one?

“It’s worth starting in 2021. It can be described as a time of increased demand against the backdrop of a shortage of cars due to the consequences of the pandemic. For example, the lack of microchips,” the interlocutor pointed out. “In a normal situation.

the consumption of chips grows along with the development of production capacity. Due to the pandemic, they have not progressed. In fact, it was the development of consumption, not supported by production capacity, that led to a shortage in the new car market.

In 2022, the situation has changed dramatically. At the beginning of the year, the availability of cars was quite high against the backdrop of existing demand.

— The automotive business is inherently inertial. Orders for the production of cars are formed long before new cars reach official dealers. Therefore, despite the events of the end of February and the announcement of the departure of a number of brands.

significant stocks of cars have already been accumulated in warehouses. A similar situation was observed with Russian factories, which had a certain amount of components prepared for the subsequent production of machines.

— Because of this, the entire first quarter and even the beginning of the second quarter of 2022 can be described as quite successful in terms of sales of new cars. Then the situation began to change.

On the one hand, potential buyers are forced to accept that new cars have become more expensive. On the other hand, our consumer is not yet ready to pay for a car that previously cost up to $15,000 and is now being sold for $25,000-30,000 equivalent.

— The cost and the lack of offers of new cars at prices up to 20 thousand dollars greatly influenced the willingness to purchase new cars.

This is the biggest difference between 2021 and 2022,” explains Igor Succah. – The situation has not changed so far, and until mass auto production in Russia is fully operational, there is no reason to believe that it will be transformed in the near future.

— How have the choice and preferences of Belarusians changed in terms of buying new cars this year?

– Now it makes sense to talk not about changing preferences, but rather about changing the behavior of buyers as such. People, on the one hand, buy what they have. If the product is very different from what the consumer would have purchased if there were no availability issues.

then the potential buyer will usually refuse to purchase or reschedule it to a later date. Next comes the waiting for the moment when an offer will be made on the market that meets the needs of the person.

— During the year, the dialogue with Chinese brands was mentioned more than once. What new brands should Belarusians expect to come next year?

“Negotiations have been going on and going on, and very actively. We are on the verge of signing a number of dealer agreements, but until all the signatures have been delivered, I am not ready to make it public as a fait accompli. As soon as we have a complete set of documents, we will immediately inform about it, – the general director of the Atlanta-M company emphasized— What difficulties did the Belarusian car market face this year? Is it possible to say by the last days of December that the sphere has coped with them?

– Simultaneously with the curtailment of a number of car production in the Russian Federation, cars of accessible segments were the first to disappear from the market. For example, the popular B-class: Volkswagen has Polo, Kia has Rio.

Manufacturers from China could not or did not want to offer our customers products in this segment. What they now provide is more related to the class of crossovers: these are SUV-C, SUV-D. But there are no offers of mass and affordable cars yet.

— We also carefully analyzed the algorithm for determining the cost of new cars assembled outside the EAEU, taking into account duties and fees on them. Of course, we are aware that the price of the same affordable B-class cars, while they go to our country, changes very much.

In fact, car dealers have not yet found options and ways to replace the available models that could form an adequate offer for our customers.

Will the rate on buying new cars on credit decrease?

– It is difficult to give accurate forecasts at the moment. The consumer must understand that new cars in the current situation can only be available if they are produced on the territory of the EAEU.

In our situation, Greely is capable of this, and Greely has already started selling such a car. It may turn out to be other brands, say, JAC or Chery.