New vehicle sales held up through August despite what the Motor Trade Association called economic and political uncertainty, and Chinese brands took close to a fifth of new registrations, according to figures released today by the industry body.
Total light vehicle registrations, which count both new vehicles and used imports, reached 20,252 units for the month. That was up 7.6 percent on August last year. New light vehicle registrations rose 5.5 percent to 11,716 units and used imports climbed 10.5 percent to 8,536. The passenger side of the market did the heavy lifting, up 13 percent to 9,137 units.
MTA sector manager for dealers and specialist services Larry Fallowfield said the numbers came on the back of a strong July.
“Chinese vehicles continue to capture the hearts and wallets of a lot of Kiwis,” Fallowfield said.
“A real talking point last month was the strong interest in Chinese vehicles and the August data shows that was no one-off.”
BYD, Chery, Jaecoo and GWM all recorded gains during the month, lifting the share of new vehicle registrations held by Chinese brands to 18.7 percent.
“That’s an almost threefold increase since 2024,” Fallowfield said.
Toyota remained the country’s leading brand, helped along by the RAV4, Corolla Cross, Hilux and Prado. Mitsubishi and Kia also gained ground. The Hilux was the top selling commercial vehicle with 890 registrations even though light commercial registrations as a whole fell 14.4 percent. Hybrids stayed the most popular fuel type across private, fleet, rental and government buyers, and company buyers accounted for 43 percent of registrations.
The headline growth figure hides a more complicated month. A separate breakdown of the same NZTA registration data published by Auto Trader NZ found that rental fleets took 2,533 of the 9,137 new passenger registrations, or 27.7 percent. Close to three in every ten new passenger vehicles put on the road last month went into a rental fleet rather than to a household or a business, which takes some of the shine off the strongest August the passenger segment has had since 2022.
The commercial sector went the other way. Registrations there fell 15.6 percent to 3,079 units from 3,648 a year earlier, although that was an improvement on July’s 2,927 as some Fieldays orders spilled into the month. Utes and vans are the vehicles tradies and farmers buy when they feel confident about the year ahead, and they have now been sliding for months while passenger sales rise.
The Chinese surge also looks different depending on which month you compare it to. Auto Trader counted six Chinese brands on the passenger makes board, being GWM, MG, BYD, Chery, Jaecoo and Geely, and found they registered 1,545 passenger vehicles between them. That was up 86.1 percent on the 830 those brands managed in August last year and lifted their combined passenger share from 10.3 percent to 16.9 percent. Measured against July, though, the same six were down 23.2 percent from 2,012 units, and both Zeekr and Dongfeng dropped out of the top 20 after appearing in July. Distributors told Auto Trader that typhoon activity around Shanghai delayed vessel departures during the month, which matters when most of those brands are shipped out of Chinese ports.
In other words, the yearly comparison shows a structural shift and the monthly one shows how much of that shift now depends on shipping schedules on the other side of the world. A single weather event in the East China Sea can move a fifth of a month’s new car market in New Zealand.
Toyota stretched clear at the top of the passenger board with 2,387 registrations, up 20.7 percent on a year earlier and worth a 26.1 percent share. Mitsubishi followed on 917 units and Kia on 860. Mazda took fourth on 460, GWM was fifth on 351 and MG, Suzuki and BYD all sat in the mid 300s. BYD’s 336 registrations were a long way up on the 62 it recorded in August last year but well short of the 622 it managed in July. Ford had a rough month in passenger vehicles, down 50 percent to 266 units, and Hyundai more than halved to 160.
The model list tells you what New Zealanders are actually buying. Every one of the top ten new passenger models in August was an SUV. The RAV4 led on 886 registrations, the Corolla Cross jumped to 597 from 141 a year earlier as supply of the hybrid small SUV improved, and the Mitsubishi ASX came third on 475. The best selling battery electric model was the BYD Atto 3 on 107 units. Tesla did not appear in the top 20 makes at all, which fits its habit of bunching deliveries at the end of each quarter.
The ute race turned over as well. Toyota led the commercial sector with 1,115 registrations against Ford’s 633, and the Hilux beat the Ranger 890 to 571 after the order was the other way round last August. For the year to date Toyota’s 7,250 commercial registrations now sit ahead of Ford’s 6,998.
MTA said August’s results point to a market increasingly shaped by SUV demand, hybrid technology and growing competition from Chinese manufacturers, and that while Japanese brands still dominate overall market share, emerging brands are gaining momentum. The association publishes the monthly and historical registration numbers on its open access vstat dashboard, which draws on the NZTA motor vehicle register.
For buyers, the practical upshot is more choice and more price pressure at the cheaper end of the SUV market than New Zealand has had in years. For dealers, it is a market where the brand mix on the forecourt is changing faster than the total volume is, and where a quarter of the passenger numbers are being written by rental companies rather than the public.
Have you looked at a Chinese brand when shopping for your next vehicle, or would you stick with what you know? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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