Mercedes-Benz vans has said it remain committed to the Russian market despite the extremely difficult current environment. The company's head of quality that oversees the GAZ group's production of the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter at Nizhny Novgorod Mario Wildgrube said, "The market is there - at the moment everybody is waiting a bit... It does not make sense to go in and out. If you have a foot in the door, you should not remove it that fast. Let's call it a kind of investment, but of course we want to sell. At the moment there is no discussion to cancel production and go back to Germany."
Significance: The Russian light commercial vehicle (LCV) market is suffering for the same reasons as the passenger car market at the moment. Rising inflation has lowered disposal income while confidence has been crushed by the effects of the sanctions on the Russian economy and the effect of the devaluation of the rouble that occurred in 2014 and the start of 2015. Mercedes-Benz started production of its Sprinter van in 2013 and is currently looking to manufacture more than 10,000 units per year using around 250 localised Russian components as well as imported components from the likes of Takata, Lear and Pirelli which have pushed up the price of production of the Sprinter in Russia as a result of the weak rouble. In 2014 the German company sold a record 8,200 Sprinters and Sprinter Classic models according to IHS Automotive data, with the Classic the most popular Mercedes-Benz van in Russia. We are forecasting that Mercedes-Benz van sales will stand up relatively well in 2015, falling to just 7,800 units. This is in a wider Russian LCV market that is forecast to fall to 104,000 units down from 169,000 units in 2014.
