October imports mixed

October was one of the lowest recorded months of the year for the number of used cars imported into New Zealand, according to Customs NZ’s latest figures. 

The number of used passenger vehicles imported into New Zealand during October came to 8,669– the second lowest monthly total so far for this year. 

Last month’s result brought the year-to-date total to 119,091, a decrease of 24,713 units - or 17.19 per cent - compared to the same ten-month period in 2017.

There was a significant drop in used car imports from Japan in October, with 7,917 units crossing our border, one of the lowest recorded months of the year. 

The figures were also down for most of the other major countries that New Zealand imports from. There were 357 used cars imported from Australia, 133 from Singapore and 123 from the US.

New car imports slightly down

The number of new cars imported into the country last month came to 9,921, which was a decrease of 5.3 per cent on October 2017’s total. 

Year to date, 101,096 new cars have crossed the border, which is up by 5,770 units – or 6.05 per cent – compared to the same period the year before. 

Japan recorded a high number of new imported passenger vehicles in October with 4,386 units. 
 
October was also a big month for Thailand with 1,583 new imported vehicles recorded – the second largest monthly total for Thailand this year. The number from Korea totalled 1,062 and there were 591 from Germany, while 395 came in from the US. 

New commercials rising

A total of 3,313 new light commercial vehicles were imported into New Zealand in October, which was a 2.15 per cent increase on the same month last year. 

This helped to bring our year-to-date total to 31,932, which is an increase of 2.15 per cent on the same period last year.  The top three countries of export were Thailand, Japan and Germany, with 2,828, 440 and 178 units respectively. 

Contrastingly, 456 used light commercial vehicles crossed the border in October – a 36 per cent decrease on the same month last year. 

The number of used light commercials imported into the country year-to-date now stands at 5,748, which slightly less than the same period last year’s total of 6,279.

Japan was New Zealand’s main country of export when it came to all used light and heavy commercial vehicles with 478 units out of 536.