Market Insight: People movers still hold the love

HONDA closed its Japanese factory that made the Odyssey in March last year, ending a 27-year run of the once-popular people mover that combined style with economy.

That alone could have shown that people movers were no longer flavour of the month and that SUVs had won another market segment.

Perhaps not… One reason for the exit of the Odyssey was attributed to a lack of interest in the people mover market, a sector that in 2022 in Australia contributed a rather insignificant 1.1 per cent of total market sales.

But the tiny market share isn’t the reason for abandonment. The people mover sector has actually been bubbling along happily at around 12,000 units a year for the past decade, falling in a hole along with most car categories at the peak of COVID-19 in 2020 with only 7730 annual sales.

The category hasn’t, however, made much growth in that decade. It is assumed that the large, seven-seat SUVs have taken up a lot of buyer attention, although even these haven’t shown much growth in the period.

So where are the people mover buyers? Basically, they haven't moved. Most are still buying the multi-row vehicles with some buyers with large occupant demands opting for medium and large SUVs with seven-seat capacity, and even the expanding ‘upper large’ SUV segment.

There are transit businesses that rely on the boxy vans to efficiently move people and luggage while the genre attracts interest from goods delivery businesses and particularly those who want a dual-purpose carrier – a working vehicle for the week and a family mover for weekends, much like the dual-cab ute audience.

Looking back, in 2014 the people mover segment had 0.9 per cent (10,220 units) of the total market (1.1 million units).

It’s still about the same (1.1 per cent in 2022) although the 2023 year-to-date figures were kicked up to 1.6 per cent on a big shipment of Kia Carnivals (up 150 per cent on 2022) and Volkswagen Multivans (up 229 per cent).

So, the competition with large SUVs – those with seven seats or more – exists, but it hasn’t changed the share held by either.

The large SUV sector – containing the main players and people mover rivals such as the Toyota Pado, Kia Sorento, Ford Everest and Isuzu MU-X – is up 17.9 per cent year-to-date.

By comparison, the people mover segment is up 49 per cent in the same two-month period in the beginning of 2023.

Although the figures are somewhat blurred by the February sales spike in the Carnival and Multivan attributed to arriving stock, the market for people movers remains stable, if not strong, and not one that a manufacturer would leave.

In the past 12 months, three models have been taken off the market – the most unexpected being Honda’s Odyssey.

But where Honda left, the others – the LDV G10 and Hyundai iMax – were quickly replaced by, respectively, the LDV Mifa (and more upmarket Mifa 9) and the Hyundai Staria.

In 2017, the Odyssey was Australia’s second best-selling people mover with 17.4 per cent market share and 2184 new owners. It is dwarfed by – and this remains today – the Kia Carnival that then had a 46.7 per cent share. In 2023, it has a huge 82.8 per cent share.

Seven years ago, buyers chose from 16 models (13 under $60,000 and three above) while today there’s six models priced under $70,000 and eight at above $70,000, of which five are Mercedes-Benz products.

No new people movers – from any brand – are on the radar.

Meanwhile, Honda offers a seven-seat version of the CR-V in Australia but has not confirmed it will produce a replacement for the Odyssey or introduce multi-seat models such as the Passport and Pilot (available in the US) and the BR-V (Thailand).