The New Zealand new car industry is celebrating a strong start to 2021 with a near-record January and naysayers now amazed at the number of registrations.

Motor Industry Association Chief Executive David Crawford says that the January 2021 figures reveal a strong start for the new year. Registrations of 13,893 were 6.2% up on January 2020, making it the third-strongest January on record.  

“The January market has benefitted from stock arrivals in December and a resilient local economy,” said Crawford.

Overall, January 2021 registrations of 13,893 vehicles were up 6.2% (815 units) on the same month in 2020.

 After the Climate Change Commission's advice on banning the import of petrol and diesel cars by 2032, there were good signs with 244 pure electric vehicles, 93 PHEV’s and 1073 hybrid vehicles sold for the month, all up in January a year ago.

Chinese brand MG made a huge impact, sitting at 11th spot sitting just behind big guns such as Volkswagen and Nissan.

Premium brand Land Rover also hit the top 15 new passenger car/SUV segment thanks to the success of the Defender. Land Rover had 185 registrations for January, knocking Audi out from the top 15. 

For MG and Land Rover, 2021 is starting strong and will be brands to watch. 

Registration of 9713 passenger and SUVs for January 2021 were up 6.7% (614 units) on January 2020, while commercial vehicle registrations of 4180 were up 5.1% (201 units) compared to January 2020.

The top three models for the month of January were the Ford Ranger (948 units), followed by the new model Toyota Hilux (750 units) with the Toyota RAV4 in third place (471 units).

Toyota remains the overall market leader with 17% market share (2,368 units), followed by Mitsubishi with 10% (1437 units) and Ford in third spot also with 10% market share (1390 units). Kia was a close fourth with also with 10% market share (1352 units). 

Toyota retained the market leader position for passenger and SUV registrations with 15% market share (1422 units) followed by Kia with 14% (1,352 units) and then Mitsubishi with 10% market share (1002 units). 

The top-selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Toyota RAV4 (471 units) followed by the Mitsubishi Outlander (389 units) and the Kia Seltos (387 units).

The top spot for January 2021 went to the SUV Compact vehicles with 26% share followed by SUV Medium also with 18% market share and then the Pick Up/Chassis 4x4 segment with 16% share.