For the fourth month in a row, fewer new vehicles were sold in August compared with the same month last year, confirming that the overall market for the year will be down on 2018.

Motor Industry Association chief executive David Crawford says that for the month of August the number of new vehicle sales was 4.5% lower than August last year.

He says overall year to date sales were down by 5.1% percent on the first eight months of 2018, a reduction of just over 5400 fewer vehicles sold in 2019 to date. 

“Growth has disappeared from the 2019 market and we are expecting an outturn for 2019 at about 6% below 2018 levels.”

Overall August 2019 registrations of 12,607 vehicles were down 4.5% (583 units) on the same month in 2018, while the market overall to the end of August is down 5.1% (5418 units) on the first eight months of 2018.

Registrations of 8506 passenger and SUVs for August 2019 were down 1.5% (133 units) on 2018 volumes, and commercial vehicle registrations of 4101 were down 10.1% (460 units) compared with August 2018.

The top two models for the month of August were utes, with the Ford Ranger continuing its hold on the top spot (733 units), followed by the Toyota Hilux (690 units) and the Toyota RAV4 in third place (468 units).

Toyota regained the market lead in commercial vehicle sales with 22% market share (904 units), followed by Ford with 20% (831 units) and Mitsubishi third with 8% market share (348 units).