Record sales in May for NZ’s new car industry

The Ford Ranger was the top selling vehicle in May with 876 units registered. Photo: Ford NZ

The New Zealand new vehicle market continues to break records with top sales in May but international issues may hinder the rest of the year.

Motor Industry Association spokesperson Mark Stockdale says that May 2021 sales of new vehicles continue to be boosted by arrivals of new stock.  

As has been the case for the year to date, the market continues to be logistically challenging. Worldwide shipping capacity is still a long way off pre-Covid-19 levels and manufacturers are still grappling with a worldwide shortage of semiconductor chips. 

Production is being slowed down or temporarily suspended to match chip availability. Additionally, as the rest of the world comes out of Covid-19 consumers are doing what New Zealanders did last year, spending up large on new items. 

Worldwide demand for new vehicles is outstripping production capability and it is possible manufacturers might begin to pro-rata supply to markets. 

Within these constraints the New Zealand market, year to date, has performed exceptionally well with 

May 2021 registrations of 14,552 units compared to 8313 units for May 2020. 

The month of May is the largest on record and the first five months of 2021 are also the strongest on record. 

Year to date the market is up 64.9% (27,379 units) compared to the first five months of 2020.

There were 276 pure electric vehicles, 120 PHEV’s and 1232 hybrid vehicles sold for the month.

The Mitsubishi ASX performed well in May with 525 sales. Photo: Andrew Simms

Registration of 10,012 passenger and SUVs for May 2021 were up 85.5% (4,611 units) on May 2020, while commercial vehicle registrations of 4540 were up 55.9% (1,628 units) compared to May 2020.

This is also a record month of May for passenger and SUV vehicles.

The top three models for the month of May were the Ford Ranger (876 units), followed by the Toyota Hilux (795 units) with the Toyota RAV4 in third place (620 units).

Toyota remains the overall market leader with 16% market share (2,388 units), followed by Mitsubishi with 12% (1,721 units) and Ford in third spot with 8% market share (1,227 units). 

Toyota was the market leader for passenger and SUV registrations with 14% market share (1,359 units) followed by Mitsubishi with 12% (1,183 units) and then Kia with 10% market share (1,016 units). 

The top-selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Toyota RAV4 (620 units) followed by the Mitsubishi ASX (525 units) and the Mitsubishi Outlander (407 units).

Toyota’s RAV4 continues to sell well for the brand with 620 registrations. Photo: Toyota

Toyota regained the market lead with 23% market share (1,029 units) followed by Ford with 21% (932 units) and Mitsubishi third with 12% market share (538 units).

The Ranger retained the top spot for the month of May as the bestselling commercial model with 19% share (876 units) followed by the Toyota Hilux with 18% share (795 units) and the Mitsubishi Triton in third place with 11% market share (491 units). 

The top spot for May 2021 went to the SUV Compact vehicles with 25% share followed by SUV Medium also with 16% market share and then the Pick Up/Chassis 4x4 segment with 16% share.