Estonian new car sales soar 21 pct in November

Photo: Raigo Pajula /Postimees

In November 1,953 new cars were sold in Estonia which is around 21 percent more than in November 2013, while in this year's October 2,049 new cars were sold.

The change in the taxation of company cars as of December was probably the reason behind the soaring growth of the market of new cars, the association of Estonian car dealers and service companies AMTEL said. In the Jan-Nov period a total of 19,876 new cars were sold, 7 percent more than in the same period last year.

As expected the share of new cars was high also in first registrations, totaling 48 percent.

The number one place among manufacturers in new car sales belonged as usual to Toyota with 340 units sold, followed by Skoda with 186 and Volkswagen with 176 units. Skoda Octavia meanwhile was the best-selling model with 110 units sold, followed by Nissan Qashqai, Toyota Auris and Toyota Avensis with 72 units each. Of electric cars 26 new units were delivered to buyers in spite of the ELMO electrical mobility program which cofinanced buying electric cars ending.

Since companies were clearly focusing on expanding their passenger car fleet in November, the sales of utility vehicles experienced a slight downfall on month as well as on year. In November 354 such vehicles were sold. In the Jan-Nov period 2 percent more utility vehicles have been sold than last year. The top seller in the utility vehicle segment in November was Peugeot with 59 units sold, followed by Citroen with 55 and MAN with 33, the latter thanks to 24 buses sold.

In trucks, Scania and Volvo were the most successful with respectively 19 and 15 trucks sold.