The year has started strongly for New Zealand’s new vehicle distributors, with many companies having record January registrations and other marques taking back titles they lost in 2015.
Registrations were up nearly 2 per cent on January 2015, with 8899 passenger vehicles and 2994 commercial vehicles recorded, and it was the strongest year on record for commercial vehicle registrations for the month of January, according to the Motor Industry Association (MIA).
Toyota maintained its significant margin over the rest of the sector with 19 per cent market share (2243 units), Ford recorded 1444 units and Holden 1244 units.
Porsche Macan
Ford’s January 2016 results were up 43 per cent from the same month last year, and in particular, its passenger vehicle sales increased from 5.5 per cent market share in January 2015 to 8.4 per cent market share in January 2016.
The Ford Ranger continued to dominate the commercial segment, with 659 Rangers sold in January; 350 more than Toyota’s Hilux.
January is always a strong month for new vehicle sales figures, with many buyers waiting until the start of the year to register their vehicles so they can have a 2016 model.
Porsche New Zealand had a record January with 78 vehicles registered — nearly half those were the Macan medium SUV, the dominant player for the luxury brand last year.
Porsche recorded 436 new vehicles for 2015, up from 285 in 2014, with the Macan accounting for 185 of new vehicle registrations last year.
BMW NZ celebrated the start of 2016 with 201 registrations, knocking off rival Mercedes-Benz, which took out the title of best-selling premium brand in 2015.
MIA’s chief executive officer David Crawford said the biggest segment continued to be SUVs with 33 per cent of the market share.
“While new vehicle sales for 2016 have started where they left off in 2015, the remainder of 2016 is expected to slightly soften as the year progresses,” he said.