Ranger tops sales
The Ford Ranger was the clear leader of the January new vehicle market.
The New Zealand new vehicle market has made a quiet start to 2019 with January sales about 6.0 per cent down on record January volumes from last year.
“The January 2019 figures shows the new vehicle market begins the new year down on January 2018,” said David Crawford, chief executive officer of the Motor Industry Association.
“There were 13,938 vehicles registered in the month of January, down 6.0 per cent (896 units) on January 2018. Notwithstanding the lower result, it was still the second strongest January on record.”
The motor industry forecasts sales to remain at strong, but not record, levels in 2019.
“As 2019 gets under way, the economic environment that existed this time last year and before that has begun to fundamentally change, albeit slowly. However, levels of new vehicle sales while softer than this time last year, remain at historically high levels,” said Crawford.
Registrations of new passenger and SUVs for January 2019 were down 7.9 per cent (855 units) on 2018 volumes while commercial vehicles were down by 1.0 per cent (41 units) compared to the January 2018.
Toyota was the overall market leader in January gaining 17 per cent market share (2312 units), followed by Ford with 11 per cent (1494 units) and Mitsubishi with 9 per cent market share (1248 units).
Toyota was also the market leader for passenger and SUV registrations with 17 per cent market share (1718 units) followed by Mazda with 11 per cent (1052 units) and Mitsubishi with 8 per cent market share (803 units).
New Zealand’s top-selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Toyota Corolla with 669 units (of which 428 were rentals) followed by the Mazda CX5 with 364 units and the Suzuki Swift on 351 units.
In the commercial sector Ford began the year by regaining the market lead with 22 per cent (888 units) followed by Toyota with 15
per cent (594 units) and Mitsubishi third with 11 per cent market share (445 units).
The Ford Ranger was the bestselling commercial model (and most popular model overall) achieving 837 units followed by the Mitsubishi Triton with 445 units and the Toyota Hilux in unfamiliar territory falling back to third position with 434 units.
Vehicle segmentation for January 2019 continued recent trends with SUVs and light commericals dominating the market. The top two segments for the month were SUV Medium vehicles with 16 per cent share followed by SUV Compact with 15 per cent market share and then the Pick Up/Chassis Cab 4x4 segment with 14 per cent market share.