New passenger vehicle sales climb
There were 9,273 new passenger vehicles registered in New Zealand during January, which was up 3.7 per cent from 8,938 in the same month of last year.
Mitsubishi’s Eclipse Cross, pictured, was last month’s top-selling model and it took out 4.5 per cent of the market after selling 421 units. The SUV’s sales were up from 107 and by 293.5 per cent when compared to January 2022.
Last month’s second-most-popular model was the Toyota RAV4 on 386 units for a market share of 4.2 per cent. That was a 310.6 per cent jump from 94 sales last year.
Kia took out third and fourth spot with its Stonic and Niro SUVs achieving 340 and 338 sales, or 3.7 and 3.6 per cent of the market, respectively.
Suzuki’s Swift completed the top five on 326 sales – up 28.9 per cent from 253 for 3.5 per cent overall.
Of the top 10 selling models for January, the only one to record a decrease from the same month of last year was the Mitsubishi Outlander. Its sales fell from 74.6 per cent from 1,184 to 301.
As for marques, Toyota topped the table for passenger vehicles thanks to 1,540 units for an increase of 210.5 per cent from 496 in January last year. Its share of last month’s new passenger-vehicle market came in at 16.6 per cent.
Kia was second on 1,505 – up from 1,083 and by 39 per cent year on year to claim 16.2 per cent of last month’s market.
Mitsubishi came third but its sales fell 41.3 per cent from 1,672 in January 2022 to 982 last month. Its monthly share was 10.6 per cent.
Hyundai was fourth with 575 registrations for a market share of 6.5 per cent. Its total was down by 17.7 per cent from 733 units in the same month of last year.
Fifth place went to Suzuki with a market share of 6.2 per cent. It recorded a year-on-year drop of 11.4 per cent – from 649 in January 2022 to 575 last month.
There were mixed fortunes around the regions with many seeing sales decline, although the main centres all reported year-on-year increases.
Auckland’s sales rose 13.7 per cent from 3,342 units to 3,799, Wellington’s numbers were up 1.7 per cent over the same period, from 996 sales to 1,013, while the number of units registered in Canterbury were 13.4 per cent higher, climbing from 1,235 to 1,401.
