Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – Skoda, the Czech car producer, for the first time in history, became Poland’s biggest car producer, as far as the number of new cars sold in the January-May period is concerned. According to Samar, the company monitoring the car market, Skoda sold 12,600 cars, more than Toyota (12,300) and FIAT (10,800). ‘The reason is obvious. Skoda is to many clients like Volkswagen but much cheaper’, Roman Kantorski, the CEO of the Polish Automotive Chamber PIM.
However, even Skoda faces the same troubles as the whole market. Last year, in the January-May period, the Czech producer sold 22,200 cars. In May 2005, 2,600 Skoda cars were sold, while a year ago – 3,300. Toyota sold 2,100 cars last month and FIAT 1,700. According to Samar, in the January-April period, the Poles bought 106,300 new passenger cars while in the same period of last year it was 169,600. ‘The situation is bad and there are no chances for improvement. If low sales will continue in Summer (traditionally holidays are not good season for car dealers), the economic situation of Polish car distributors will deteriorate’, PIM’s head warned.Poland/Enterprises/Automotive