January and February 2026 were the worst for the Russian car market in two decades, said Dmitry Kostromin, Sales and Marketing Director of AvtoVAZ, at the ForAuto 2026 forum. According to him, the beginning of the year turned out to be worse than the company's own forecasts.
In my opinion, these are probably the worst January–February in the last 20 years of statistics. If we also slightly adjust the methodology for calculating the market and take into account only new cars that are actually sold and registered, the market is actually even worse
The figures confirm the top manager's pessimism. According to Avtostat, Lada registrations in January fell by 28.7% year-on-year to 19.7 thousand units, the entire market decreased by 9.5% to 80.6 thousand cars. In February, Lada sales also went poorly: the company reduced the plan for the month by 15%.
Among the positive factors, Kostromin highlighted the absence of pressure from warehouse stocks - in previous years, overstocking was a serious problem. Nevertheless, he admitted that "without creative ideas, this market is probably impossible to pull out".
The first half of the year, according to his forecast, will remain difficult, but he expects recovery in the second half. Kostromin now estimates the final result of the year at the level of 2025 - about 1.4 million passenger cars and LCVs, abandoning the January forecast of 1.5 million units. The Lada sales plan for the year remains the same - 370 thousand units, which is 9% higher than last year's result.
