In total, 107,665 cars were sold – down by 18,203 units.

Year to date, 548,119 cars were sold – a drop of 14.6% from the 641,993 units sold for the same period last year.

Joerg Schreiber, chairman of the AEB Automobile Manufacturers Committee, commented: “Total sales result in May demonstrates that the road towards market stabilisation remains bumpy. As the car market keeps struggling, the macroeconomic picture gives reason for cautious optimism: the prevailing view among the experts appears to be that the country’s economy has passed the low point, and that the outlook until the end of this year is stable at least, or even positive moving into 2017. Such perspective is encouraging of course, but yet has to materialize in consumers’ minds before it can translate into growing confidence and purchase activity. For now, patience remains the order of the day.”

The AEB added that plans to update its full-year forecast for the Russian automotive market in 2016 in July following the publication of June figures.