2020 SALES BY MODEL
THE year just past ended up being a stronger year for new vehicle sales than the Motor Industry Association (MIA) expected, with a 23% sales dip over 2019 confirmed following a final tally of registrations for last month.
The global pandemic impacted supply — due to overseas factory closures and supply chain disruption — and demand — due to the lockdown and economic downturn. Even so, 119,398 new registrations were recorded last year, compared to 154,763 in 2019. Used import registrations also slipped due to Covid19, but by a lesser 20%, from 151,871 to 122,190.
‘‘The result is better than anticipated back in April when we were in the depths of the Covid19 lockdown period, where we thought the market could be down as much as 35% by year end,’’ MIA chief executive David Crawford, said.
He added that while the
market continues to be affected by stock constraints for high volume models, these are expected to ease as 2021 progresses.
As in previous years, light commercials lead the way on the 2020 newvehicle sales charts, with the Ford Ranger continuing as the country’s topselling new vehicle with 7975 sales, ahead of the Toyota Hilux with 5796 sales. The Mitsubishi Triton (3687 sales), the Holden Colorado (2487), Nissan Navara (2362), Toyota Hiace (1868), Mazda
BT50 (1812), Isuzu DMax (1166), Ford Transit (1137) and Fiat Ducato (773) round out the light commercial top10.
The RAV4 took over from Toyota family Corolla to become king of new passenger car sales with 5341 registrations; the Corolla (2567 sales) meantime dropped to fifth in the passenger car ranks, behind Kia’s popular SUV duo the Sportage (1907) and Seltos (2611) and the Mazda CX5 (2567). Behind the Corolla, the Suzuki Swift (2562),
Top newvehicle sales by model. — 1 Ford Ranger 7975 2 Toyota Hilux 5796 3 Toyota RAV4 5341 4 Mitsubishi Triton 3687 5 Kia Sportage 2907 6 Kia Seltos 2611 7 Mazda CX5 2567 8 Toyota Corolla 2567 9 Suzuki Swift 2562 10 Holden Colorado 2487 11 Mitsubishi ASX 2477 12 Mitsubishi Outlander 2424 13 Nissan Navara 2362 14 Toyota Hiace 1868 15 Mazda BT50 1812
Mitsubishi ASX (2477), Mitsubishi Outlander (2424), Nissan Qashqai (1742) and Hyundai Tucson (1659) completed the passenger vehicle top10.
Eight of the top10 new passenger vehicles were compact or mediumsized SUVs, and together these two vehicle types accounted for almost 60% of new passenger vehicles sales last year. Adding in large and luxury SUVs as well, close to threequarters of the passenger vehicles sold year were SUVs
of various shapes and sizes.
Hybrids made big gains on the newvehicle sales charts last year, accounting for 8662 sales, up from 5875 in 2019. Pure electric vehicles and plugin hybrids accounted for a further 2275 registrations though (and due partly to supply issues) this number was down almost 500 vehicles on 2019.
Among the various brands, Kia made the most obvious gains, selling over 900 more vehicles than in 2019 despite the overall market downturn.
As a result, the Korean marque climbed from eighth for total market share and sixth for passenger cars to fifth and second place respectively. Holden, on the other hand, dropped massively with the discontinuation of the brand.
Toyota remained undisputed sales number one with 17% market share, though this was down on a 20% result for 2019. Ford was second overall (but only eighth for passenger cars) ahead of Mitsubishi and Mazda.