Mitsubishi Motors Corp. may increase vehicle sales in Russia by 40 percent next year as a ninth consecutive year of economic growth boosts demand for automobiles.
Rolf Group, the carmaker's Russian distributor, aims to sell 140,000 Mitsubishi-brand vehicles in 2008, up from an expected 100,000 this year, Matt Donnelly, the Moscow-based company's president, said in an interview in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Mitsubishi Motors has won Russian customers with the Lancer sedan and other vehicles, as an oil-driven economic boom helps raise disposable income. In the first half of this year, Russians bought a record $16 billion of new foreign cars, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
"Mitsubishi is a really strong brand in Russia," along with other Japanese automakers, because of its reliability, Donnelly said. Rolf also represents other brands, including Ford Motor Co., Volkswagen AG's Audi AG and Daimler AG's Mercedes.
Russian sales of imported cars jumped 60 percent to 510,000 in the first half, while purchases of locally made foreign cars doubled to 205,000, PwC said in July. Foreign automakers have tripled their share of the Russian market in the last five years to 78 percent.