Light Commercials

Well, here it is, October 2018, which means it must be time for our annual look at the light commercial sector.

It’s been reminiscent of that ancient Chinese curse ‘’may you live in interesting times,’’ for the light commercial market this year. The good news is that as of August, the sector was up 3.2 percent on what it was in 2017. Furthermore, the number of share incresees is much greater than the number of those who lost ground. It just happened that those who lost ground have lost ground in a big way with drops of anywhere between 20 and 30 percent. Still, there have been some solid gains to make up the checks and balances with both LDV and Mercedes-benz seeing the most dramatic increases, not only in percentage jumps, but also in unit sales. YTD figures for LDV breaking four-digit figures comfortably and MB doubling its triple-digit ones. The market was so close to tipping over into 4000 units by August, it’s a safe bet to say it’ll be a great finish for those supplying utes and vans as close out the year in another few months. Popularity in the sector of course, stems from the rise of the utility as a replacement family vehicle and its sales successes spurred on by building contracts in both Auckland and Christchurch. As the tradies work more, they get paid more and they can upgrade their vehicles faster. OK, that sounds simplistic, but it just happens to be accurate. Try getting hold of a builder to do minor renovations in our main centres and see what happens. And clearly, the Golden Child of the ute market is the Ford Ranger, which has taken the crown off Toyota not only in Hilux sales, but also when it comes to eclipsing Corolla. Ford of course, is pretty much divesting itself of traditional passenger cars and has gone a step beyond in creating a new sub-class of ute – that of the performance utility with the arrival of the Ranger Raptor. This has led Ford’s rivals to do the same thing, and we are seeing the likes of Holden beefing up its Colorado at both factory and specialist tuning shop levels with the Colorado Extreme and the HSV Sportscats. Volkswagen meantime, while it may not have the numbers, for sure it has the attitude as evidenced by the release of its giantkilling V6 – arguably, the most powerful engine in terms of kw anyway – from out of the factory. We have also seen Mercedes-benz come into the market with a very strong product offering to take on Volkswagen when it comes to adding an element of top flight class to a segment which has to date specialised in hauling all manner of messy and unpleasant cargo – not what you would typically expect form the brand with the three-pointed star on the grille! And Toyota – once king of the hill, is now in the happy polace of coming back up to take a swing at Ford. Well, they say when you reach the top, there’s only one place to go and everybody’s trying to get you there. Toyota didn’t go into complete freefall however, despite the brand’s sales model revolution. The drop-off in sales was to be expected according to TNZ, but the registrations seen in recent times have shown that the brand was down, but far from out. Will Ford ute sales hold out till the end of the year, our will Toyota’s big sales gamble of Drive Happy be able to make up the difference with Hilux? Stay tuned. The utes – showing 14.7 percent growth across all configurations YTD to August – are obviously the pointy end of the spear when

it comes to commercial vehicle registrations, but what about the vans? Yeah, not so flash. The registrations show a drop of 7.6 percent across all variations for the YTD to August period. Clearly, the van market is about due for its shot in the arm to rejuvenate sales and get the registration numbers up. Volkswagen has just gone through an upgrade programme for Crafter and Transporter, though the focus has been more on price to compete, rather than promoting desirability through features and spec. Mercedes-benz is just releasing the new Sprinter, which is held by many to be the benchmark van, despite Transit registrations from Ford absolutely eclipsing it the Stuttgart brand, and, while it is in a different class, the Toyota Hiace is still light years ahead of everyone else (at least it was in August, and we don’t think it’s going to be caught this year). What we are keen to see is what will happen with van electrification. Currently in the new van market, LDV is the only game in town with a pure EV commercial that is out and being sold. Renault has product, but it is first generation stuff which the company is going to sit on until Gen 2 product arrives in 2019. Everyone else? Clearly, the projected sales don’t stack up against the investment the distributors here would have to make, so whichever of the mainstream brands decides to get in the pool with LDV is likely to short circuit anyone else. But let’s see who’s who and who’s got what: