The Ford Ranger maintained its market leadership during the record May 2021 new car sales month, with 876 registrations, followed by the Toyota Hilux with 795 registrations and the Toyota RAV-4 with 620 registrations.
Motor Industry Association spokesperson Mark Stockdale says the arrivals of new stock in May 2021 boosted the record number of new vehicles registered.
“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 global shortage of semi-conductor chips,” Stockdale says.
“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,” he says.
May 2021 registrations were 14,552 units compared to 8,313 units for May 2020. Year to date the market is up 64.9% (27,379 units) compared to the first five months of 2020. The month of May is the largest on record and the first five months of 2021 are also the strongest on record.
Overall, May 2021 registrations of 14,552 vehicles were up 6,239 units (75%) on the same month in 2020.
There were 276 pure electric vehicles, 120 PHEV’s and 1232 hybrid vehicles sold for the month.
Registration of 10,012 passenger and SUVs for May 2021 were up 85.5% (4611 units) on May 2020, while commercial vehicle registrations of 4,540 were up 55.9% (1628 units) compared to May 2020. This is a record month of May for passenger and SUV vehicles.
Market leaders
Toyota remains the overall market leader with 16% market share (2388 units), followed by Mitsubishi with 12% (1,721 units) and Ford in third spot with 8% market share (1227 units).
Toyota was the market leader for passenger and SUV registrations with 14% market share (1359 units) followed by Mitsubishi with 12% (1183 units) and then Kia with 10% market share (1016 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 regained the commercial vehicle market lead with 23% market share (1029 units) followed by Ford with 21% (932 units) and Mitsubishi third with 12% market share (538 units).
The Ford Ranger remained the best-selling 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).
SUV Compact vehicles commanded the highest market share in May 2021 with 25% followed by SUV Medium with a 16% market share and then the Pick Up/Chassis 4×4 segment also with a 16% share of the new vehicle market.
