August 2021 New Vehicle Registrations Takes a Covid Hit

Motor Industry Association Chief Executive David Crawford says that August 2021 sales of new vehicles were heavily affected by the countrywide Alert Level 4 snap lockdown.

For the month of August there were 6,746 vehicles sold compared to 10,610 vehicles in August 2020, a decrease of 36.2 percent (3,864 units).

Year to date there have been 106,498 vehicles sold compared to 76,572 to end of August 2020, an overall increase year to date of 39.1 percent (29,926 units).

With the Covid-19 snap lockdown effectively shutting down the second half of August for all but essential vehicles, it is no surprise that the August outturn came in approximately 45 percent lower than the three previous months (May, June and July of) this year.

Key points

• There were 350 BEVs, 81 PHEVs and 804 Hybrid vehicles registered in August.
• Compact and medium SUVs remain strong market segments with 22 and 16 percent share.
• The Ford Ranger was once again the top selling model, but after that the next two spots were the Toyota Corolla and the Toyota RAV4.

Segmentation – What Are Consumers Buying

The top spot for August 2021 went to the SUV Compact vehicles with 22% share followed by the Pick Up/Chassis 4x4 segment with 16% market share and then SUV Medium also with 16% share. Year to date compact and medium SUVs are the two strongest segments in our market.

Year to date 56% of the market are small to medium sized vehicles.

Market leaders in August / 2021

Toyota remains the overall market leader with 23% market share (1,578 units), followed by Ford with 12% (817 units) and Mitsubishi in third spot with 10% market share (673 units).

BEVs, PHEVs and Hybrids

There were 328 light vehicle and 22 heavy vehicle full battery electric vehicles registered in August. The top selling models were the Tesla Model 3 (191 units) followed by the MG ZS (56 units) and the Hyundai Kona (31 units).

There were 81 plugin hybrid electric vehicles registered in August. The top selling models were the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross (28 units) followed by the Mitsubishi Outlander (23 units) and the MG HS (12 units).

Even though the second half of August was effectively shut down, hybrids continued their strong growth with 804 vehicles registered in the month of August. The top selling models were the Toyota RAV4 (219 units) followed by the Toyota Corolla (150 units) and Toyota Camry (94 units). Toyota and Lexus together accounted for 85 percent of the hybrid market in August (689 units).

SUV and passenger vehicle sales August / 2021

Toyota regained the market lead for passenger and SUV registrations with 25% market share (1,124 units) followed by Mitsubishi with 11% (513 units) and then Suzuki with 9% market share (412 units).

The top selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Toyota Corolla (447 units) followed by the Toyota RAV4 (302 units) and the Mitsubishi ASX (245 units).

Commercial vehicle sales August / 2021

Ford retained the market lead with 34% market share (729 units) followed by Toyota with 21% (454 units) and Mitsubishi third with 7% market share (160 units).

The Ford Ranger retained the top spot for the month of August as the bestselling commercial model with 31% share (671 units) followed by the Toyota Hilux with 14% share (298 units) and the Toyota Hiace in third place with 6% market share (136 units).

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