Utes still the top choice, but business sector is battening down.

THE softening economy impacted on new vehicle sales in January, with a 7.4 percent year-on-year decline recorded.

Though new car (passenger and sports utility) sales rose by almost four percent in this comparison, the commercial side - in which one-tonne utilities and vans dominate - slumped by almost 30 percent. This even though two utes were more popular than the best performing car.

Today registrations for the first segment came to 9274 units, a 349 unit increase on January 2022, but commercial registrations tallied at 3207, so 1347 down.

In comment offered today, David Crawford, chief executive of the Motor Industry Association, which speaks on behalf of almost all distributors, said was pleasing to see confidence from private buyers was holding up.

“However the business sector appears to batting down the hatches on unnecessary or unaffordable expenditure. “

Another trend was that registrations of new battery electric vehicles (BEV) were softer than the last quarter of 2022, with 1246 sold.

The BYD Atto3 (above) achieved top tier category sales status on the back of 235 registrations; a modest accrual. It was followed by the MG ZS (166 units) and the Kia EV6 (149 units). Last year’s dominant electric, the Tesla Model Y, didn’t rate mention.

Registrations of non-mains replenishable hybrids remain strong, with 2075 registered and Toyota models dominating. Plug-in hybrids accounted for 495 units, the majority being from the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross.

The latter was also the top selling car last month though utes did even better – in a rare reversal of status, the Toyota Hilux dominated on the back of 800 registrations, beating the Ford Ranger by four units.

Toyota retained the overall market lead for the month of January with 20 percent market share (achieved with 2529 units), followed by Kia with 12 percent (1506) and Mitsubishi, with 10 percent from 1298 units.

The MIA says regardless that utes are still doing well, compact and medium sports utilities are doing even better, these accounting for 61 percent of the total market.