January 15 (SeeNews) - Worldwide sales of Romanian car maker Automobile Dacia rose 12.2% to 655,235 vehicles last year, mainly due to the popularity of the Duster, Logan and Sandero models, the company said on Monday.
With more than 16,200 units sold, or about 40% of the total brand sales, Logan continues to be the most popular Dacia model in Romania, Automobile Dacia in a press release.
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"This result could have been better if the local market had not suffered in 2017 from the massive impact of imports of second-hand vehicles, as Romania recorded a sad record of used car registrations last year," it added.
Logan MCV remains the best selling break model in Romania, with 3,200 units sold in 2017. Launched at the end of the first semester, the Stepway version already accounts for a quarter of the total sales of the Logan MCV.
Sandero dominates the B-hatch segment and, with more than 8,400 units delivered in 2017, is ranked second among the best selling models.
Also, the first generation of the Duster made a real sprint in 2017 and managed to achieve the best performance of its entire existence, with nearly 8,300 sold units.
About three quarters of all cars sold by Dacia in 2017 were registered in countries in Europe.
France remains the brand's main export market, where Dacia sold over 120,000 units last year. The second market is Germany, where Dacia sold 64,918 new units last year, closely followed by Italy, with 63,374 units sold in 2017.
In Romania, Dacia remains the market leader, with a market share of 29%. Domestic sales rose by 11.3% in 2017, to 43,262 units.
Dacia assembled 313,883 cars in 2017 at its plant in the Romanian town of Mioveni, down from 320,457 in 2016, the Romanian Association of Automobile Manufacturers (ACAROM) said at the beginning of January.
Renault produces vehicles under the Dacia brand in the Mioveni plant, as well as in its two plants in Morocco. The company also assembles semi-knocked-down kit (SKD) or car bodies in Russia, Morocco, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Iran and India.
The decline was mainly due to the manufacturing processes related to the new Dacia Duster and the new Logan and Sandero models, ACAROM added.
Renault bought Romania's Automobile Dacia, an ailing state company at the time, in 1999.
The Renault Group's worldwide sales topped 3.76 million vehicles in 2017, 8.5% up on the year, the company said in a separate statement on Monday.
Dacia topped the SeeNews ranking of the 100 biggest companies by total revenue in Southeast Europe in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
(1 euro = 4.6377 Romanian lei)
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