Last year, Croats bought just 13,500 new cars, but imported 60,000 used cars from the EU.
Last year, in Croatia there were a total of 103,583 newly-registered passenger cars, of which 44,106 were new and 59,477 were imported from other countries. When we add to this number another 8,340 new light commercial vehicles and 4,279 used light commercial vehicles, we can see that 2016 was a record year by the number of newly-registered vehicles in Croatia with 116,202 cars. The total number is even larger than in 2008, the last year before the economic crisis, but at the time Croats bought as many as 88,000 new passenger cars, and only 10,000 imported ones, reports Večernji List on January 30, 2017.
However, in 2008, about 60 percent or more than 50,000 new cars were bought by individual citizens. In 2016, out of 44,106 new cars, citizens bought just 13,507 cars (30.6 percent), while 30,599 vehicles were purchased by businesses (enterprises, companies, rent-a-car companies, the state…).
On the other hand, the vast majority of 59,477 imported passenger cars ended with private persons, which shows that that Croats have not stopped buying cars, but they started buying used vehicles from the EU, whose imports to Croatia have been constantly and rapidly growing since Croatia became a member of the EU in 2013. The main problem is that the average age of cars is getting worse from year to year. In 2008 it was 9.7 years, while in 2016 it was 12.5 years for passenger cars, and 13.5 years overall.
Among used vehicles, Croats were most likely to buy cars between four to five years old, which is an improvement compared to previous years when people mostly sought cars aged between 10 and 12 years. Still, the average age of imported cars was 8.5 years, similar to the last few years.
When it comes to new cars, citizens prefer Suzuki, which in 2016 sold 1,400 cars to individuals customers. The most popular new model among Croatian customers was Suzuki Vitara, which sold 1002 cars. It was followed by Renault Clio with 478 vehicles. Among businesses, the most popular model was Volkswagen Golf with 1,869 vehicles, followed by Skoda Octavia and Ford Focus.
Golf was the most sought after model among used vehicles. Last year, as many as 6,718 used Golf vehicles were imported, followed by another Volkswagen model, Passat, with 3,296 new registrations, while the third was BMW 3 Series with 2,627 vehicles.
