NZ sales: Sales slip ‘consistent’ at 23.8 per cent

NEW Zealand’s peak automotive body, the Motor Industry Association (MIA), has released the latest round of new-vehicle sales figures, revealing the Kiwi new-vehicle market has slipped almost 25 per cent compared to September 2019.

10,902 new vehicles were registered during September, some 3623 units down (-24.9%) on the 14,252 managed in 2019.

Far from surprised by the news, MIA chief executive David Crawford said the September figures were reflective of the economy’s Covid-19 induced weakness and were consistent with recent months.

“Year to date the market is down 23.8 per cent, which is consistent with recent months data confirming our expectations that 2020 will finish about 25 per cent down on 2019 volumes,” he said.

Of those 10,902 registrations, 1217 of them were Toyotas which gave the Japanese giant a dominant 14.9 per cent market share, well ahead of Ford (994/9.1%) in second and Mitsubishi (978/9%) in third.

Mazda occupied fourth spot overall with 810 registrations (7.7%), closely followed by Kia (801/7.3%), one of the few brands once again to see any significant year-on-year sales growth (+33.1%).

Sister company Hyundai climbed into sixth spot (656/6%) ahead of Suzuki in seventh (630/5.8%) and Nissan in eighth (495/4.5%).

Volkswagen chalked up 418 new sales (3.8%), enough to give the German marque ninth overall while Honda rounded out the top 10 with 350 units (3.2%).

Of the premium brands, Mercedes-Benz continued its dominance with 289 new sales (2.7%), well ahead of arch-rivals BMW (168/1.5%) and Audi (134/1.2%), the latter of which was actually overtaken for third by American EV specialist Tesla which chalked up 158 sales (1.4%).

In terms of specific models, it was once again the Ford Ranger which sat on top with 663 new sales while the Toyota RAV4 held onto second place with 464.

The Toyota HiLux meanwhile was usurped from third place by the quiet-achieving Mitsubishi Triton (360).

In fact the HiLux was not just removed from third-place – it was completely overthrown and kicked down to seventh with just 265 new registrations, outsold by the Suzuki Swift (290), Kia Sportage (285) and Toyota Corolla (283).

Eighth place belonged to the Mitsubishi Outlander (262), ninth to the Mazda CX-5 (242) and tenth to the Hyundai Tucson (232).

On a broader scale, passenger and SUV sales were down a combined 25.1 per cent from the 10,279 managed in September last year to 7697 while commercial vehicle registrations also took a hit, diving a similar 24.6 per cent from 4203 to 3167.

Overall it should come as no surprise that medium SUVs proved to be the most popular vehicles this September, occupying a 22 per cent share of the total market, closely followed by their compact counterparts in second (19%) while off-road pickup trucks occupied a solid 13 per cent.

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