'Better than anticipated' - new vehicle market drops 23 per cent in 2020

Tuesday, 19 January 2021

December’s vehicle registration figures are in and show a drop of 25 per cent compared to the same month in 2019. That resulted in the new vehicle sector dropping by 23 per cent, a result that was “better than anticipated,” according to Motor Industry Association chief, David Crawford.

“When we were in the depths of the Covid-19 lockdown period, we thought the market could be down as much as 35 per cent by year’s end.”

However, the market is still being affected by stock constraints for high volume models, which the MIA expects to ease as 2021 progresses.

The Ford Ranger managed to hold onto the top spot despite some heavy competition. Will 2021 see a shuffling of the pack?

December 2020 notched 8383 registrations, down 2777 units on December 2019. In total, 2020 saw 119,398 registrations, compared to 154,479 in 2019, a drop of 35,081 units.

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The insurmountable RAV4 continued its strong run of form to take first place for passenger and SUV models in 2020.

Toyota was unable to push Ford off the top step for the month, with the Hilux registering 443 new units to the Ranger’s 662 new units. The Toyota RAV4 pulled a respectable third place with 387 units.

Ford did well in 2020 to maintain its position as top commercial marque. 2021 should be quite a close year, though...

For the whole year of 2021, the top three models were the same – the Ford Ranger (7975 units) followed by the Toyota Hilux (5796 units) and the Toyota RAV4 (5,341 units).

As for monthly market leaders, Toyota remained the overall leader with 19 per cent share (1602 units) followed by Mitsubishi with 11 per cent (945 units) and Ford in third spot also with 11 per cent market share (911 units).

For the 2020 year the top three marques were Toyota with 17 per cent market share (20,762 units) followed by Ford with 10 per cent (12,334 units) and Mitsubishi with nine per cent share (10,306 units).

Toyota regained the market leader position for passenger and SUV registrations in December with 18 per cent market share (996 units) followed by Mitsubishi with 12 per cent (694 units) and then Mazda with 11 per cent market share (616 units).

For the year, the top three passenger and SUV marques were Toyota with 16 per cent market share (12,777 units) followed by Kia with 10 per cent share (7971 units) and Mitsubishi with eight per cent market share (6457 units).

The top-selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Toyota RAV4 (387 units) followed by the Mitsubishi ASX (327 units) and the Mazda CX-5 (326 units).

For the year the top three passenger and SUV models were the Toyota RAV4 (5341 units) followed by the Kia Sportage (2907 units) and the Kia Seltos (2611 units).

As for the commercial sector in December, Ford retained the market lead with 26 per cent (719 units) followed by Toyota with 22 per cent (606 units) and Mitsubishi third with nine per cent market share (251 units).

For the 2020 year the top three commercial marques were Ford with 24 per cent market share (9112 units) followed by Toyota with 21 per cent (7985 units) and Mitsubishi with 10 per cent market share (3831 units).

The Ford Ranger retained the top spot for the month of December as the best-selling commercial model with 24 per cent share (662 units) followed by the Toyota Hilux with 16 per cent share (443 units) and the Nissan Navara in third place with nine per cent market share (242 units).

The top three commercial models for the 2020 year the Ford Ranger (7975 units) followed by the Toyota Hilux (5796 units) and Mitsubishi Triton (3687 units).

There were also 197 pure electric vehicles, 55 PHEVs and 738 hybrid vehicles sold for the month. For the 2020 year there were 1519 pure electric vehicles, 756 PHEVs and 8664 hybrids.