Vedomosti – Gorki Car Factory (GAZ) has announced that the working schedule will be reduced to four-days-a-week for Daimler and GM, in between 13.10.2014 – 12.04.2015 and 14.11.2014 – 13.05.2015, respectively. As is known, GAZ manufactures Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Classic for Daimler and Chevrolet Aveo for GM. The factory has not given any specific information about the production figures of the aforementioned models, however an annual production capacity of 30,000 vehicles has been allocated for GM and 25,000 for Daimler.
Russian LCV market had shrunk by nearly 30% by the end of the January-August period. As assessed by Avtostat, the market is expected to shrink by 15%-20% this year. In contrast with the general trend, the LCV sales of Mercedes-Benz is on the rise. The January-September sales figure of the brand is 5617 vehicles (+64%). This sharp rise in sales is explained by the low base effect, taking into consideration the recent start of Sprinter Classic production at GAZ, during the Summer of 2013.
The Russian sales of GM is on the decline, on the other hand. Year-on-year, the sales of the brand has declined by 26.7% during the January-September period, with 138,404 vehicles.
GAZ makes contract manufacturing for Volkswagen, alongside Daimler and GM. The Group’s Skoda Octavia, Skoda Yeti and VW Jetta models are being manufactured at the factory. Despite the decline in Volkswagen sales (-13.4%), the company representatives have stated that at the moment there are no amendment plans for production numbers at GAZ.
