No lingering in dealerships for incoming stock

Kia Stonic was the best-selling passenger model last month.

PLENTY of fresh stock, plenty of willing buyers – despite all the travails occurring here and overseas, the new car market nonetheless ran extra hot last month, with a record return according the distributor organisation.

The Motor Industry Association says it was the strongest April on record for sales of new vehicles.

MIA chief executive David Crawford says comparing last month to April of last year is a “statistical challenge” due to the commensurate period of 2020 being a time when the country was in full lockdown.

For the record, last month’s count was 13,133 units – whereas April of last year just 1039 were moved through into consumer hands. Unsurprisingly, year to date the market is up 62.4 percent or 21,140 units compared to the first quarter of 2020, when Covid pretty much stopped trading.

Crawford has offered that a more useful comparison is with the first four months of 2018. That was the strongest year for new vehicle sales. Year to date registrations of 2021 sales were up 8.3 percent (4196 units) on the first four months of 2018, largely due to long waiting lists being filled as shipments arrive.

But anyway, if year-on-year comparison is determined reasonable, then the stats look … well, rather amazing. Registrations of 8823 passenger models and of 4310 commercials were both well over 1000 percent up on the same month of last year.

The top three models for the month of April were the Ford Ranger (1026 units), followed by the Toyota Hilux (781 units), which count as commercial vehicles. Kia’s Stonic was the top-selling passenger car, and third overall, with 625 units. It sits in the compact SUV category that accounted for one in four passenger sales last month.

Toyota achieved 2235 units to remain the overall market leader with 17 percent share, followed by Mitsubishi, whose 1589 units delivered a 12 percent slice, followed by Ford (11 percent share, 1419 units.

Toyota also tops the passenger sector, with a 14 percent share, but with Mitsubishi and Kia respectively just one and two percentage points behind. After the Stonic, the best selling passenger models were the Mitsubishi Outlander, with 531 units, then the Toyota RAV4, with 477.