Azerbaijan: First official data available

Hyundai is estimated to be the best-selling carmaker in Azerbaijan.

Thanks to Farid Nurizade and in cooperation with Renault-Nissan Group – today I can share with you the very first official car sales statistics ever published for Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is located on Caucasus region and has border with Russian Federation to the north, Iran to the south, Armenia and Turkey to the West. As we described in a first study of this market back in 2010, Russian carmakers such as Lada, GAZ and UAZ were the most popular car brands up to 2003 when their market share started to decline as the Azerbaijani car market was developing and more people could afford new, safer and more up-scale imported vehicles. Around 2008-2009, Korean and Japanese brands became market leaders, and luxury car sales started to rise considerably.

Toyota ranks 2nd, with the Corolla its best-seller.

After gaining independence from the USSR in 1991, Azerbaijan hit an all-time registrations record in 2007 at 18.600 deliveries. 2008 saw the first market decline in the history of the country at -23%, and the market fell back below 10.000 annual units in 2011 before regaining significant ground in 2012 (+59%). 2013 marked a new record for at 22.670 sales, and this figure was beaten again in 2014 at 25.175, up 11%. Our local correspondent Farid Nurizade reports that the three best-selling manufacturers in Azerbaijan are currently and in this order Hyundai (most popular model – Elantra), Toyota (most popular model – Corolla) and Kia (most popular model – Sportage: as we reported in 2012).

Kia places third, with the Sportage the most popular nameplate (2016 model pictured).

Farid Nurizade was also able to obtain official sales figures for the Renault brand, going from 259 sales in 2012 to 388 in 2013 and 450 in 2014. Lastly, an important note about the Azerbaijani car market concerns the price of petrol. Thanks to extensive oil fields located within the country, fuel prices are significantly lower than in most other parts of the world. As of 2015 the regular grade petrol price is $0.66 per liter, premium grade petrol costs $0.90 per liter and diesel costs $0.57 per liter. Cheap fuel led petrol cars to be ultra-dominant in Azerbaijan. Analyses show as much as 90% of all new cars sold here are petrol-powered. Only in the pickup segment are diesel-powered models dominant, with roughly 70% of sales.

Full Year total sales figures for the period 2007-2014 below.