NZ sales: Sales dip during EOFY month

NEW Zealand’s end of financial year sales blitz has failed to match last June’s record of 16,485 registrations, but despite the slowdown, it was still the second biggest June on record.

 

Last month, 15,172 passenger cars, SUVs and light commercials were sold in NZ, representing an 8.2 per cent drop over the same month last year, with both segments taking a hit.

 

Combined passenger car and SUV sales were down by 4.5 per cent over June 2017 to 9725, while light commercials dropped by 6.2 per cent to 5447 units.

 

For the first half of 2018, NZ’s new-vehicle market is tracking just ahead of the first six months of 2017, with 80,036 vehicles finding homes, representing a 0.5 per cent lift.

 

Once again the most popular vehicles in NZ were pick-ups, with workhorses making up all but one of the top five positions in June’s best-selling model list.

 

Ford’s Ranger was the best-selling model last month with 1049 units – the only model to crack 1000 units in June – followed by the Toyota RAV4 SUV in second on 678 units on the back of a massive rental haul of 499 sales.

 

The Toyota HiLux was in third with 646, followed by Holden’s Colorado with 567 and Mitsubishi’s Triton rounding out the top 10 with 507 units.

 

The rest of the top 10 was made up of the Nissan Navara (365), Toyota Corolla (360), Mazda CX-5 (328), Kia Sportage (293) and the Isuzu D-Max (286).

 

Year to date, the top 10 best-selling models list is not hugely different to June’s, however the Colorado and Corolla are in third and fourth respectively, the RAV4 is in seventh and the Swift is the 10th best seller so far this year.

 

Toyota retained its place as the market leader last month with 2458 registrations, but it was a 25.7 per cent slide compared with June last year.

 

Ford took second with 1629 sales but it was a 3.5 per cent dip, while Holden held onto third with 1276 sales, a 5.6 per cent drop.

 

Mitsubishi crept up by 8.9 per cent to secure fourth spot with 1234 units and Mazda went backwards by 6.8 per cent with 1064 sales.

 

The rest of the June top 10 list was made up of Hyundai (879, -3.7%), Nissan (759, +16.4%), Volkswagen (657, -0.7%), Kia (639, +2.0) and Suzuki (566, -17.1%).

 

For the first half of the year, Toyota is still the overall dominant brand in NZ with 13,968 sales (+1.0%), with Ford in second on 8748 (-1.2%), then Holden with 6413 (-9.9%), Mazda on 6186 (+2.8%) and Mitsubishi on 5914 (+5.0%).

 

Nissan (4150, +1.2%) is in sixth spot so far this year, followed by Hyundai (4028, -7.0%), Kia (3650, +7.0%), Suzuki (3435, -10.4%) and Volkswagen (2990, -5.0%).

 

Last month, Toyota led the passenger car and SUV market, thanks in part to strong rental sales of the RAV4, Corolla and Highlander (Kluger), capturing a 22 per cent market share, with Mazda in second and Hyundai third.

 

Ford was the market leader for light commercials with a 22 per cent share, with Toyota behind it on 17 per cent and Holden in third with 11 per cent.

 

The medium SUV segment was the most popular last month with 18 per cent of the NZ new-vehicle market, closely followed by the pick-up/cab chassis 4x4 segment with 17 per cent, while compact SUVs were in third with 13 per cent market share.

 

Motor Industry Association (MIA) chief executive officer David Crawford said the figures showed that there had been a slight shift in buyer preferences to smaller cars in recent months.

 

“The MIA has received many inquiries on whether higher fuel prices have resulted in people purchasing smaller vehicles or more electric vehicles,” he said. “Based on the results to end of June there appears to be a slight shift to smaller vehicles with the SUV medium and SUV compact segments coming in first and third.”

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