New Zealand Vehicles Market in October 2023 collapses for the 4th month in a row, losing 6.7% in volume with 10,042 new registrations. YTD figures at 90,267 are down 6.7% from the previous year. Ford up 3 spots (+72.6%).
Market Trend and Outlook
New Zealand Car Market in October 2023 collapses for the 4th month in a row, losing 6.7% with 10,042 new registrations. YTD figures at 90,267 are down 6.7% from the previous year.
Looking at cumulative data up to October 2023 brand-wise, the new leader Toyota reports 17,146 sales (+21.0%), overtaking Kia in 2nd with 9,191 registrations (-9.8%), followed by Mitsubishi -down 2 spots- with 8,506 units sold (-43.2%) and Hyundai with 6,034 new sales (-8.3%).
Suzuki maintains 5th with 5,883 sales (-13.7%), followed by MG at 4,399 (+0.2%), Ford -up 4 spots- at 4,030 (+72.6%), and Tesla with 3,777 sales (-13.3%)
Mazda falls 3 spots into 9th position with 3,340 sales (-28.2%) and Honda closes the top 10 with 2,885 new car registrations(-12.4%).
Looking at specific models the Toyota RAV4 is still the best seller rising 34.0% in year-on-year sales, followed by the Tesla Model 3 up 69.9% and 10 spots in the rankings.
Medium-Term Market Trend
New Zealand’s car passenger sales in the past decade have shown signs of a healthy market, growing for 9 consecutive years. From 2010 to 2019 the market doubled, moving from 80,453 in 2010 to 160,878 sales by the end of 2019.
The arrival of the pandemic slowed down car passenger sales in New Zealand, falling 25.7% to 119,579 new registrations.
The pandemic wasn’t enough to stop the uptrend accumulated in the past decade, in fact, 2021 reported a 31.6% growth in new car registrations with 2022 continuing the uptrend and reaching 116,451 cumulative sales(+3.8%). Although the market grew in 2022, it did so at a slower pace. A combination of factors are behind the current industry struggle: the disruption in the global supply chain caused by a lack of raw materials, in particular for the production of microchips and the Governments push towards Evs.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands and top 10 Manufacturers Group.
