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Last year marked another record in Nz-new vehicle sales. But experts predict a drop for 2019. Richard Bosselman reports.
This year will deliver a soft new vehicle market after five years of continuous record sales, according to the organisation representing new-car distributors.
This comment comes in the wake of industry confirmation that 2018 delivered 161,519 registrations, an unprecedented tally in the almost four decades of keeping count.
For the fourth successive year, the Ford Ranger remained both the top commercial vehicle model and the overall Kiwi new vehicle favourite, with 9904 registrations, 484 units above the 2017 result.
Toyotas were second and third most popular.
The Hilux continued as runner-up to the Ranger – a position it has posted since losing its spot as the country’s top-selling ute in 2014 – and also posted increased popularity over the previous year, with 8086 registrations (a 980 unit increase).
The Corolla was the third highestselling model for the year with 7300 registrations, continuing its passenger sector dominance.
The Motor Industry Association (MIA), which presents the figures it collates from Government agency sources, is suggesting this period of growth is over.
‘‘Given current global economic factors, distributor expectations for 2019 indicate a softening of the market,’’ says MIA chief executive David Crawford. ‘‘Further steady growth in the new vehicle sector above 2018 . . . is not expected.’’
Even though registrations for the whole year were up 1 per cent on 2017, that represented an increase of just 1648 vehicles.
Crawford cited last month’s tally being down 420 units, a 3.6 per cent decline, over December, 2017.
He has already noted a decline in passenger volume, with total registrations of cars and sports utilities for 2018 being 0.4 per cent, or 403 units, below their 2017 volumes, this despite SUVS being easily the dominant passenger vehicle choice now.
The luxury vehicle market, where Mercedes-benz continued to dominate, with 2251 registrations (followed by Audi with 1811 and BMW with 1649) also softened during the year, Crawford noted.
The overall market’s increase was due to commercial vehicles which achieved a 4 per cent (2049 unit) climb on the previous return. This was due to those one-tonne utes, whose 12 per cent overall market preference equals that for SUVS.
Toyota New Zealand was the overall market leader in December, with 2900 registrations providing a 26 per cent share. Next was Holden with 9 per cent (1012 units) then Mitsubishi, 909 units for 8 per cent share.
Toyota was also the market leader for passenger and SUV registrations with a 28 per cent market share (2175 units) followed by Holden (10 per cent, 772 units) then Mazda (9 per cent, 712).
The top selling passenger and SUV models for the month were Toyotas, Corolla (732 units), RAV4 (515) and Highlander (325).
The Japanese make also led the commercial sector overall in December, beating Ford by 78 units even though Ranger was the month’s top-selling individual pick, with Mitsubishi third with 405 units for 12 per cent market share.