Kia NZ is proving the small car brand that can after knocking Toyota off the top spot of new passenger and SUV sales for October, and sitting in third spot overall.

The top selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Kia Sportage (488 units) followed by the Kia Seltos (471 units) and the Toyota Corolla (315 units).

Toyota remains the overall market leader with 17 per cent market share (2070 units), followed by Ford with 11 per cent (1288 units) and Kia closely behind in third spot also with 9 per cent market share (1276 units).  It is the first time that Kia has been in the top three, due to the demise of Holden in the New Zealand market that used to podium.

The top three models for the month of October were the new model Toyota Hilux (731 units), followed by the Ford Ranger (686 units) with the Kia Sportage in third place (488 units).

It is the first month in nearly a year that the Ranger hasn’t nabbed the top spot, thanks to the new Hilux being launched in October. But the Ranger remains number one year to date with 6309 registered units.

Premium brand Mercedes-Benz made the top 10 in October with 693 registrations, and year to date has 2456 vehicles sold, sitting at least 1500 more than rivals BMW and Audi.

Overall, new vehicles sales were down compared to 2019, as to be expected due to the restriction of sales during Covid lockdown. But the industry also acknowledged that the previous years have been extraordinarily strong with record sales, and that the market was correcting itself.

Brands spoken to by AutoMuse say that GFC taught them how to survive during a crisis, and that veterans sales people in the industry have used that experience to cope with Covid’s impact on sales. 

Motor Industry Association Chief Executive David Crawford says that October 2020 registrations of new vehicles continued the downward trend for 2020. October registrations came in at 20.6 per cent below October 2019 with 11,876 vehicles registered, down 3089 units in the same month last year.

“Year to date the market is down 23.5 per cent, which is consistent with recent months data confirming our expectations that 2020 will finish about 25 per cent down on 2019 volumes,” Crawford said.

But those statistics aren’t as dire as predicted when Covid struck in March, with estimations of up to 50 per cent down in sales for 2020.

The last two months of 2020 look to be competitive with the fight for the top three spots.