Ranger fights back against Hilux in April sales

Tuesday, 4 May 2021

The Toyota Hilux retains a slim lead overall, but the Ford Ranger had a good month in April, so is closing in on it.

The Motor Industry Association has confirmed that April 2021 was the strongest April on record for sales of new vehicles, buoyed by arrivals of new stock.

Sales last month totalled 13,133 units, putting the year-to-date registrations figure at 55,012. The MIA says that is up 8.3 per cent (4196 units) on the previous best year-to-April figure from 2018.

Comparing the month to April last year is a bit unfair, as the country was in lockdown. In any case, sales are up by 12,094 units, making the year-to-date registrations up by 62.4 per cent (21,140 units).

The Ford Ranger is back on top as the best-selling vehicle in New Zealand for April.

The best-selling model for April was the Ford Ranger (1026 units), taking the top slot for the month from the Toyota Hilux (781 units) with the Kia Stonic making a surprise appearance in third place (625 units). The Hilux remains the to-selling vehcicle in total this year, but its lead is down to a tiny 3 units, sitting on 3351, compared to the Ranger’s YTD sales of 3348.

**READ MORE:

The plucky little Stonic made a surprise appearance as the third most popular vehicle for April.

* Strongest March ever for new car sales as Hilux stays on top

* The comeback continues: the best February ever for new vehicle registrations

Despite the Ranger bouncing back against the Toyota Hilux, it couldn’t push the Pick Up/Chassis 4x4 segment above the ever-popular medium SUVs.

* New vehicle sales bounce back strongly

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

Toyota remained the overall market leader with 17 per cent market share (2235 units), followed by Mitsubishi with 12 per cent (1,589 units) and Ford in third spot with 11 per cent market share (1419 units).

Toyota also led the passenger and SUV market with 14 per cent share (1260 units), followed by Mitsubishi with 13 per cent (1187 units) and then Kia with 12 per cent share (1090 units).

The Stonic was the most popular passenger and SUV model for the month, followed by the Mitsubishi Outlander (531 units, 56 of which were plug-in hybrids) and the Toyota RAV4 (477 units, 348 of which were hybrids).

There were 177 pure electric vehicle sales over the month, 126 PHEVs and 1102 hybrids. The best-selling EV was the Hyundai Kona with 67 units, followed by the MG ZS EV with 36 units and the Kia Niro at 20 units.

Interestingly, while the Tesla Model 3 is still the best-selling EV across all of 2021 so far, it was outsold by the Porsche Taycan in April by one (11 versus 10 sold).

Ford took the market lead for the month with a 27 per cent market share (1162 units) followed by Toyota with 23 per cent (975 units) and Mitsubishi third with nine per cent market share (402 units).

The Ford Ranger regained the top spot for the month of April as the best-selling commercial model with 24 per cent share (1026 units) followed by the Toyota Hilux with 18 per cent share (781 units) and the Mitsubishi Triton in third place with eight per cent market share (364 units).

It probably won’t surprise many people to hear that small SUVs were the most popular segment, with 26 per cent market share, followed by medium SUVs and Pick Up/Chassis 4x4, both with 17 per cent share.