BUDAPEST, Hungary -- AvtoVAZ, Russia's largest carmaker, was the overall leader in new-car sales in Eastern Europe in the three months to the end of June, a Reuters survey showed Tuesday.


Italy's Fiat outstripped other bourse-listed car producers in new-car sales in the region in the second quarter.


"Fiat still offers a cheaper car range in markets driven primarily by prices," said industry analyst Tomasz Telma of consulting firm PlanEcon. "And it has a stronger sales network in Poland."


In Poland, Fiat owns the region's largest car factories outside the former Soviet Union.


The survey covers first-time sales from licensed dealers and importers of new cars and light commercial vehicles in Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Czech and Slovak Republics, the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia.


Sales data, provided mostly by car producers and partly by DRI/McGraw Hill Inc. and PlanEcon Inc., were checked with dealers, importers, government statistics and industry observers.


AvtoVAZ sold 100,700 vehicles, compared with Fiat's 39,664, in Hungary, Poland, the former Czechoslovakia and the former Yugoslavia. Data on other markets were unavailable.


Volkswagen, the only other bourse-listed car producer with turnover above 15,000 vehicles, sold 35,650, allowing Fiat to cling to its lead of about 4,000 above VW, which it achieved the previous second quarter.


Sales for both the Italian and German groups fell by roughly 3,000 in this year's second quarter from the same period last year.


But each increased sales by more than 5,500 from the first three months of this year, when Fiat sold only 33,358 vehicles and VW only 29,900.


Overall sales figures fell by 13 percent to 346,477 in this year's second quarter from 397,024 last year. But the real drop would be even higher, because two of the 32 companies providing figures failed to disclose last year's sales.


Stricken car producers in the former Soviet Union accounted for 76 percent of the drop.


"Developments in Russia cast the longest shadow on the region's overall market performance," Telma said.


Russian car production continues to slide as domestic producers suffer from rapid inflation, striking workers and unreliable suppliers.


Turnover dropped more than 15 percent in Poland, where a 10 percent excise tax took effect in July 1993. Sales fell more than 50 percent in Bulgaria, where an 18 percent value-added tax was introduced in April this year.


Mercedes-Benz, a subsidiary of Daimler-Benz, showed the greatest growth in sales in the second quarter, excluding companies with a turnover of less than 100 vehicles.


The luxury carmaker's sales nearly doubled to 4,826 this year, from 2,570 in 1993. In the former Soviet Union alone, Mercedes sold 3,158, as Russians continued to be drawn by the prestigious German car.


Among producers not building cars in former communist Europe, Ford continued to report the strongest sales in the region, although its second-quarter turnover fell to 5,647 this year, from 5,852 last year.