Used car imports tumble

The number of used passenger vehicles imported into New Zealand during August came to 10,334 – the second lowest monthly total so far, this year. 

Last month’s total was down by 16.8 per cent from August 2017’s total of 12,416.

The year-to-date total for used cars imported now stands at 101,491. That’s a decrease of 12.17 per cent when compared to the total reached by this time last year when 115,560 units had crossed the border.

During August, 9,699 used passenger vehicles came in from Japan for a market share of 93.86 per cent. The figures were down for most of the other major countries that New Zealand imports from. There were 343 used cars imported from Australia, 123 from Singapore and 74 from the US – the lowest monthly recorded for America this year. 

The UK accounted for 77 units.

New passenger vehicles

The number of new cars imported into the country last month came to 11,202, which was an increase of 603 units, or 5.7 per cent on August 2017’s total. 

New passenger vehicles coming in from Japan last month amounted to 5,107, which was the second-best month for that country this year behind July’s total of 5,280. 

August was also a big month for Germany with 1,014 new imported cars recorded – only slightly behind March 2018’s record total of 1,178. 

The number from Korea totalled 1,035 and there were 1,148 from Thailand, while 508 came in from the UK for its best month of 2018. 

Mixed bag for commercials 

A total of 3,331 new light commercial vehicles were imported into New Zealand last month, which was a 21 per cent increase on August 2017. 

This helped to bring our year-to-date total to 26,022, which is an increase of 4.96 per cent on the same period last year. 

The top three countries of export were Thailand, Japan and China, with 2,748, 427 and 142 units respectively. 

Contrastingly, 537 used light commercial vehicles crossed the border last month, which was a decrease of 22.3 per cent on August 2017’s total of 691. 

The number of used light commercial vehicles imported into the country year-to-date came to 4,848, which is slightly under the same period last year’s total of 4,918.

Japan was New Zealand’s main country of export when it came to all used light and heavy commercial vehicles with 569 units out of 619.