The New Zealand new vehicle industry has made a soft start to 2020 with January registrations down by 6.2 per cent on the same month last year.
January registrations totalled 13,078 units, down by 860 units compared to January 2019. The commercial vehicle segment was only 0.4 per cent (17 units) behind 2019 volumes while the passenger and SUV segment fell by 8.5 per cent (843 units).
"As expected, the new year has continued the downward trend set during 2019," said David Crawford, chief executive officer of the Motor Industry Association.
"Expectations for the 2020 year is for it to be about four to five percent down on 2019, with the month of January coming in a bit softer than anticipated."
New vehicle sales fell by 4.3 per cent last year coming off a record year in 2018.
The top-selling models for the month of January were the Ford Ranger (885 units), followed by the Toyota RAV4 (569 units) with the Toyota Hilux in third place (473 units).
The top-selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Toyota RAV4 (569 units) followed by the Kia Seltos (430 units) and the Suzuki Swift (289 units).
The New Zealand market was dominated by pick-ups and the compact and medium category SUV models. Only one traditional car — the Suzuki Swift — made the top-10 models for the month and the top-10 rankings in the passenger/SUV segment included eight SUV models along with the Swift and the Toyota Corolla.
Toyota was the overall January leader in January with 15 per cent market share (1903 units), followed by Ford with 12 per cent (1534 units) and Kia in third spot with 7 per cent market share (964 units).
The top three segments for the month of January were once again SUV medium vehicles with 19 per cent share followed by SUV Compact also with 19 per cent market share and the Pick Up/Chassis 4x4 segment with 14 per cent.
With 6432 new SUV registrations across the Compact, Medium, Large and Luxury segments, the sales of SUV represented just over 70 per cent of the passenger vehicle market last month.
The January registration figures included 140 pure electric vehicles, 88 plug-in hybrids and 647 hybrid vehicles — continuing their strong sales trend. All electrified categories show an significant increase on January 2019 figures which were 67, 53 and 368 units respectively.
There was a low level of new rental car registrations in January. Only 14 rental cars were included in the Toyota RAV4 registration total of 569 units and the Holden Trax topped with the rental car segment with 83 registrations.
Mercedes-Benz led the January market for luxury car brands with 272 registrations ahead of BMW with 237 and Audi 145.
January Top 10:
1 Ford Ranger, 885
2 Toyota RAV4, 569
3 Toyota Hilux, 473
4 Kia Seltos, 430
5 Holden Colorado, 373
6 Mitsubishi Triton, 366
7 Suzuki Swift, 289
8 Kia Sportage, 280
9 Nissan Navara, 274
10 Nissan Qashqai, 270