Straight off the ship and into driveways – that’s the pattern showing in a big month of new vehicle registrations.

Toyota Hilux kicked dirt into Ford Ranger’s face in February

LAST MONTH’s record run of new vehicle sales isn’t a sign that New Zealand’s distributors are overcoming a severe shortage of stock to sell – it’s because every vehicle arriving here is being snapped up by waiting customers.

There are still big backlogs of customer orders, and as a result new vehicle stock reserves are still less than 50 percent of normal, says the Motor Industry Association.

“Essentially all new vehicle arrivals are going straight from the wharves to the distributors to the dealerships to the customers,” says MIA chief executive officer David Crawford.

“February’s new vehicle sales figure of 12,488 registrations was the strongest for the month of February ever, but it could have been even better - New Zealand is still facing a cocktail of supply constraints.”

These include some factories remaining on go-slow due to issues surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, shortages of various vehicle parts, and big delays in getting new vehicles shipped to New Zealand.

Despite those issues, February was still a very healthy month for new vehicle sales. They were 9.2 percent up on February last year, and year-to-date the market is up 7.6 percent or 1865 units on the opening two months of 2020.

If the trend continues, March and April will be a welcome change from the same months of last year when sales fell to almost nil thanks to the effects of Covid-19 – the national Level 4 lockdown here, and the lack of vehicle manufacturing internationally.

A feature of the MIA figures for February were some significant changes in what vehicles are the most popular.

Mitsubishi Motors New Zealand’s runout programme for Outlander seems to be going well.

The Toyota Hilux cleaned out arch-rival Ford Ranger to lead the commercial sales race, its 804 sales taking a commanding 21 percent market share, well ahead of Ranger’s 15 percent.

And in the SUV/passenger vehicle segment it was the Mitsubishi Outlander that grabbed top spot from the Mazda CX-5 with 595 registrations – helped along by 133 sales to a fast-recovering rental car industry.

Compact SUVs strengthened their lead over from medium SUVs as the most popular vehicle type. Led by such product as Kia Seltos and Sportage, Mitsubishi ASX and Toyota C-HR, the segment grabbed a 22 percent market share with 2778 registrations. Year-to-date the compact SUVs now hold a 24 percent share, well ahead of the 19 percent held by the medium SUVs.

Toyota remains the market leader for all new vehicle sales with a 16 percent share, but Mitsubishi has improved to 13 percent thanks largely to continued popularity of its Outlander and ASX models, and Triton ute. Ford and Kia share third spot with 8 percent market shares.

“The February market has benefitted from recent stock arrivals and a resilient local economy where New Zealanders continue to spend on new vehicles what might otherwise be spent on international travel,” says Crawford.

The top 10 sellers for February: Toyota Hilux, 804 registrations; Mitsubishi Outlander, 595; Ford Ranger, 549; Mitsubishi Triton, 474; Kia Sportage, 370; Kia Seltos, 364; Mazda CX-5, 360; Mitsubishi ASX, 319; Suzuki Swift, 311; Toyota RAV4, 284.