Bulgaria Full Year 2013: Now onto real sales data… (EXCLUSIVE)

Over 60% of all Nissans ‘sold’ in Bulgaria this year are re-exported outside the of the country.

* See the Top 33 All-brands ranking by clicking on the title! Thanks Kaloyan *

If you are a regular BSCB reader, you will know that I have been advising to take Bulgarian monthly and annual sales data with a pinch of salt, as a lot of new registrations actually never step on Bulgarian roads but are re-exported to other European countries, this because Bulgaria is the country in the European Union where cars are the cheapest and there are no customs between European Union countries anymore. Thanks to the hard work of Kaloyan, external automotive sector observer for Bulgarian weekly ‘Tema’ and who has been supplying BSCB with official Bulgarian data for over a year now, I can share with you exclusively the real sales figures for all carmakers in Bulgaria over the Full Year 2013.

Dacia remains the most popular carmaker in Bulgaria…

In the table below you will find a few columns. The original data is the data I published in my last Bulgarian update and in every monthly article for this country. Compared to that, we now have both ‘official registrations’ and ‘real’ registrations. Real registrations are obtained by comparing official registrations and the number of vehicles that were still unregistered at the end of the year, based on Bulgarian traffic police registration information. In other words, the unregistered vehicles are the ones re-exported. Bit of a complicated way, but this brings us real sales figures for Bulgaria, with a market now standing at 20,698 registrations. The good news is the Top 6 best-sellers remain unchanged, albeit with varying variations. Dacia is still #1 ahead of Volkswagen, both with real sales 16% inferior to official ones. They are followed by Toyota (-9%), Peugeot (-5%), Skoda (-18%) and Renault (-26%).

One in every 3 BMW registered in Bulgaria in 2013 will never see Bulgarian roads…

The biggest ‘re-export’ culprits are found below: 31% of BMW registered in Bulgaria are re-exported, a rate that climbs to an incredible 62% for Nissan. Hyundai and Mercedes figures were estimated in my last updates, it turns out they were both bloated by 25% for Hyundai and 44% for Mercedes… Other interesting movements include Great Wall up 10% vs. original figures to land at #10, Fiat down 22%, Infiniti up 111% on estimates, Lada up 49% and Subaru up… 780%!

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Full Year 2013 Top 33 All-brands Ranking Table below.