BUDAPEST, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- The proportion of households in Hungary possessing a car has reached 46 percent, the highest rate ever, according to a representative survey carried out by pollster Median Institute.
The number of passenger cars in the first half of 2018 reached 3.58 million after continuously rising for six years.
In 2017, a total of 272,000 cars were registered, including imported cars. In the first half of this year, the number of car registrations reached 150,000.
Most passenger cars are in private ownership with only 2 to 3 percent of households owning company cars.
Hungarian cars are relatively old, the average age of vehicles, according to the survey, being 13.9 years in Q1 2018, some 0.7 year older than two years ago.
According to the research, the age distribution of cars has deteriorated steadily since the start of the survey, mainly due to the 2008 global crisis and the consequent decline in new car purchases.
The new car market has become increasingly popular since 2014. Last year, 116,265 new cars were sold in Hungary, 20.4 percent more than in the 2016.
The average annual distance travelled by cars was 17,000 km, around 800 km more than in 2016.