sold<\/a> in Russia in September, 1.5 times more than during the same month last year.<\/p>\nThe German automaker overtook Chinese brand Exeed, which had led the segment for the previous two months.<\/p>\n
Exeed\u2019s sales fell 54% year-on-year to 1,650 units in September, while another Chinese brand, Tank, ranked third with 1,530 sales \u2014 half the volume recorded a year earlier.<\/p>\n
Rounding out the top five were Hongqi (1,200 units, up 69%) and Lixiang (1,140 units, down 38%).<\/p>\n
Overall, 78,300 new premium vehicles were sold in Russia in the first nine months of 2025, down by about one-third from the previous year, Avtostat said.<\/p>\n
Official BMW deliveries to Russia were halted following sanctions on the export of cars priced above 50,000 euros, forcing the automaker to suspend operations in the country.<\/p>\n
Since then, Chinese brands have dominated the premium segment.<\/p>\n
Even under those restrictions, between 600 and 800 new BMWs were sold each month thanks to parallel imports, Avtostat said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo sanctions can kill our customers\u2019 love for \u2018beamers\u2019,\u201d an employee of an independent importer told The Moscow Times’ Russian service, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.<\/p>\n
Chinese automakers have scaled back exports to Russia this year amid market oversupply and weaker consumer demand.<\/p>\n
In contrast, alternative importers have increased shipments of international car brands, particularly via China and South Korea, Avtostat CEO Sergei Tselikov said.<\/p>\n
The pace of imports accelerated after Industry and Trade Minister Anton Alikhanov announced plans in June to raise recycling fees on high-powered cars, including those imported by individuals.<\/p>\n
Importers are now rushing to bring vehicles into Russia before the fee hike takes effect, said a senior executive at an auto trading group.<\/p>\n
Once implemented, the changes could raise the price of cars with engines over 1.6 liters by 800,000 to 2 million rubles ($10,000-$25,000), he explained.<\/p>\n
Most parallel imports are currently registered under individual buyers, who benefit from a discounted recycling fee of just 5,200 rubles ($65) for a new vehicle.<\/p>\n
According to Tselikov, parallel imports accounted for about 10% of all new car sales in September, more than double last year\u2019s share, and could rise to 15% or even 20% by December.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrivate buyers are in a rush, importing so many powerful cars that logistics and registration offices can\u2019t keep up \u2014 there are queues everywhere,\u201d an employee at an import firm told The Moscow Times’ Russian service.<\/p>\n
The government had planned to end the discounted recycling fee for individuals starting Nov. 1, but the Transportation Ministry said the change may be postponed\u00a0following public protests.<\/p>\n
A final decision on the timing and size of the fee increase has yet to be made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BMW has again become Russia\u2019s best-selling premium foreign car brand for the first time since April 2022 despite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[21305,332],"class_list":{"0":"post-533205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-automobiles","9":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115451749433170710","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}