Good news and bad in registrations figures for June.

Toyota’s RAV4 was the month’s most popular model.

JUNE’S new passenger vehicle registrations count is proof the country is in a Covid-caused recession.

The easing of the coronavirus lockdown saw Kiwis resume buying new vehicles in June – but the rate is much lower than for the same period of last year.

Registration statistics supplied by the Motor Industry Association show 11,514 new vehicles being sold last month.

That represents a 17.5 percent or 2438 unit decline on June last year, although it’s also an improvement on counts for April and May, when 1039 and 8313 registrations were respectively recorded.

Theyear-to-date rate is down 29.1 percent on 2019, says MIA chief executive officer David Crawford.

“The first six months of the year has been a year of two quarters,” he said. “The first quarter saw sales of 32,833 new vehicles – while the April to June quarter has seen just 20,866 new registrations, a reduction of 11,967 units for the quarter.

Crawford added the month of June reflected a steady but weaker market compared to 2019. Sales of both passenger and commercial vehicles were down, confirmation the market is tightening its belt in a recession.

Of the total number of new vehicle registrations in June, 7411 of them were passenger vehicles and SUVs which was down 15.3 percent on 2019 volumes, while registrations of 5103 commercial vehicles were down 21.2 percent on the same time last year.

But commercial vehicles continued to dominate individual sales, with the top three models all being utes – the Ford Ranger with 641 sales, Toyota Hilux with 595 and the Holden Colorado with 482.

Easily the most popular passenger vehicle was the Toyota RAV4 medium SUV which achieved 403 sales, followed by the Kia Sportage and Toyota Corolla.

But while the top three models for the month were the one-tonne utes, overall the top segments for June were dominated by SUVs. Top spot went to medium-sized SUVs with a 19 percent share, followed by compact SUVs with 18 per cent.

Toyota remains overall market leader with a 16 percent share via 1874 registrations, followed by Holden with 9 per cent and Ford on 8 per cent.

Top 15 in June

Ford Ranger                  641 registrations
Toyota Hilux                 595
Holden Colorado          482
Toyota RAV4                 403
Mitsubishi Triton          390
Kia Sportage                 287
Toyota Hiace                275
Toyota Corolla              271
Nissan Navara               251
Suzuki Swift                  227
Mazda CX-5                  216
Kia Seltos                     202
Hyundai Tucson            191
Nissan X-Trail                179
Mazda BT-50                170