Are we over utes? (Spoiler: no we're not)

Tuesday, 3 September 2019

The 10 best-selling vehicles so far in 2019.

The commercial segment was the biggest loser in the August new car sales race, with a massive 10.1 per cent drop in sales over the same month in 2018, leading to the obvious question; is our love affair with utes faltering?

Nope, not a chance - utes continue to dominantly out-sell everything else, despite taking the biggest hit in a month that continues a trend the everyone expected.

For the fourth month in a row new vehicle sales numbers were down again in 2019, with 4.5 per cent fewer registrations overall in August than the same month last year, confirming what new car distributors all projected - that the overall market for 2019 will be down on 2018.

The Ford ranger still leads the way in new vehicle sales in NZ and will no doubt get a boost when the popular FX4 model returns later this year.

Motor Industry Association Chief Executive David Crawford said that year-to-date sales were down by 5.1 per cent on the first eight months of 2018, a reduction of just over 5,400 fewer vehicles sold in 2019 so far this year.

**READ MORE:

Mitsubishi's Triton sits in a distant, but comfortable third place in both the ute segment and overall sales.

* Two-thirds of New Zealand-new vehicles are SUVs or utes

* Another record year for new cars in NZ - but it won't continue

The Toyota RAV4 looks set to possibly overtake the Corolla as NZ's best-selling passenger vehicle before the end of the year.

* Mini and more: the six most influential cars of all time**

'Growth has disappeared from the 2019 market and we are expecting an out turn for 2019 at about 6 per cent below 2018 levels,' he said.

Overall, 12,607 new vehicles were registered August 2019, which is down 583 units on 2018, while the market overall to the end of August is down 5.1 per cent (5,418 units) on the first eight months of 2018.

Passenger and SUV registrations were down 1.5 per cent (133 units) at 8,506 registrations, with the Toyota RAV4 retaining the top spot with 468 units, followed by the Toyota Corolla (388 units) and the Mitsubishi ASX (289 units).

Commercial vehicle registrations of 4,101 were down 10.1 per cent (460 units) compared to August 2018. The Ford Ranger retained the top spot as the bestselling commercial model, selling 733 units, followed by the Toyota Hilux (690 units) - despite its on-going DPF woes - and the Mitsubishi Triton (348 units).

Despite the big commercial drop, the top two models for August were still utes, with the Ford Ranger continuing its hold on the top spot (733 units), followed by the Toyota Hilux (690 units) and the Toyota RAV4 in third place (468 units).

Toyota remains the overall market leader with 19 per cent market share (2,372 units), followed by Ford with 9 per cent (1,084 units) with Mitsubishi retaining third spot with 8 per cent market share (1007 units).

Medium SUVs remained the biggest selling type of vehicle overall in August with a 20 per cent share of the market followed by Compact SUVs in second with a 16 per cent market share and the Pick Up/Chassis Cab 4x4 segment third with 15 per cent.

The slowing in sales hasn't changed our love affair with utes and SUVs, and neither has it changed the order of the ten best selling vehicles year to date and the top three models remain utes, with the Ford Ranger on top spot with 6,464 units, followed by the Toyota Hilux with 4,727 units and the Mitsubishi Triton with 3,843 units.

The best-selling passenger vehicle remains the Toyota Corolla in fifth place, despite the RAV4 outselling it in August and catching it fast in terms of overall sales.

And before you say the R word (rental, that is), while the Corolla is still easily the biggest seller to rental companies, with 147 sales in August and 1,141 so far this year, the RAV4 is doing it mainly on private sales, with just 432 of its 2,788 YTD sales being to rental companies.