New vehicle sales may have ended last year just over 7000 units down on 2018, but 2019 was still the third-strongest year for the new car industry on record.
Along with a further lift in market share for SUVs and a modest surge in pure electric and electric hybrid vehicles (EV) sales, the overall sales drop was one of key trends of 2019.
Confirmed after December sales were tallied, the fall from 161,770 new registrations in 2018 to 154,763 in 2019, was the first sales drop since 2009. Even so, last year’s new vehicle sales total has only been bettered twice before, in 2018 and 2017.
Representing a 4.3% decline, the 2019 new vehicle result was due in significant measure to declining sales of larger passenger vehicles and softening light commercial registrations. It was accompanied by a 12.8% slip in used import registrations, which fell to their lowest level since 2014.
And while 2019 has been the best year yet for electric vehicle sales here, new EVs still accounted for just 35 of last month’s 11,160 registrations, with a further 692 hybrid vehicles in the December mix.
Sports utility vehicles (including a number that are either pure or hybrid EVs) accounted for almost 65% of new passenger vehicle registrations, with their dominance aptly illustrated in the annual sales tallies by model; eight of the 10 top-selling passenger vehicles last year were sport utilities.
The country’s top-selling passenger vehicle remained the Toyota Corolla, ahead of the Toyota RAV4, Mazda CX-5, Kia Sportage, Suzuki Swift and Mitsubishi Outlander. The Mitsubishi ASX, Nissan Qashqai, Hyundai Tucson and Nissan X-Trail rounded out the passenger car top 10.
While Ford failed to register a new model in the passenger vehicle top 10, the company’s Ranger topped the light commercial charts once more, and was the country’s top-selling new vehicle of any kind by a massive margin. Second-place honours for both light commercial and overall new vehicle sales went to the Toyota Hilux. The Mitsubishi Triton, Holden Colorado, and Nissan Navara completed the light commercial top five, with all three also making the overall new vehicle top 10.
By manufacturer, Toyota’s perennial new vehicle sales leadership — now stretching back for 32 consecutive years — was unchallenged. Its 20.1% market share was more than double the 9.6% share earned by second-placed Ford.
Mitsubishi edged out Holden to take third place with 8.3% and 7.8% market share respectively. As was the case in 2018, Mazda, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, Suzuki and Volkswagen completed the top10 by manufacturer. Of these ten, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Hyundai and Kia all achieved overall sales growth despite the total market decline.
- by David Thomson
