Krisjanis aboltins THE CAR AFTERSALES MARKET IN EUROPE AND LATVIAN REGIONS

Currently, most companies in the industry generate the largest portion of profit from aftersales of passenger cars (maintenance services and sales of spare parts), but before the economic crisis, new car sales was the largest component of profit. Accordingly, in Latvia, there is a need to focus on the provision of aftersales services. The first section of the article describes and analyses the passenger car park in Europe and Latvia, and discusses the significant indicators as the number of cars per 1000 residents, the first time registered cars and dynamics of those indicators. The second section discusses the author’s survey of the Latvian drivers and types of repairs they conducted within the last year, and average annual cost of carrepairs, and tires, and the drivers ’ plans for the near-term future on reduction of car costs