6 days ago, on May 27 Automotive Employment NZ predicted new vehicle sales post COVID-19 lockdown would be at around 70% of normal levels. The Motor Industry Association has now confirmed our estimates are largely correct. Registrations are down 32% compared to the same period last year. e.g. 68% of normal levels.
The Motor Industry Association report follows:
Partial Recovery of New Vehicle Registrations for May
Motor Industry Association Chief Executive David Crawford says May 2020 registrations were down 32% (3,946 units) compared to the same month last year, with 8,313 new vehicles registered compared to May 2019 with 12,259 registrations.
“The month of May re-opened for business albeit in a constrained manner. It was a challenging month operating under alert level 2 and an economically depressed environment.
Year to date the market is down almost 32% (19,622 units) on the same period in 2019.”
Key points
- Overall, May 2020 registrations of vehicles were down 32% (3,946 units) on the same month in 2019.
- Registration of 5,401 passenger and SUVs for May 2020 were down 29.2% (2,223 units) on 2019 volumes.
- Commercial vehicles registrations of 2,912 units were down 37.2% (1,723 units) compared to May 2019.
- The top models for the month of May were the Toyota Rav4 (533 units), followed by the Ford Ranger (498 units) and the Toyota Hilux in third place (440 units).
- There were 58 BEV’s, 51 PHEV’s and 721 Hybrids sold in the month of May.
Market leaders in May
For the month of May, Toyota was the overall market leader with 19% market share (1,611 units), followed by Holden with 9% (760 units) and the Ford in third spot with 8% market share (702 units).
Government Action Required to Reduce Economic Loss
The MIA shares the views of many that with no new Covid-19 cases for the last 11 days and no known community spread for at least two months, we should be looking to move to alert level 1 sooner rather than later.
The country is better prepared now to manage the odd case of Covid-19 should it arise. Our health system has improved significantly in terms of testing capability, contact tracing and hospital intensive care capacity.
It is time to get our economy moving forward while maintaining our health gains.
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