Weekly Dealer Car Enquiries: April 3, 2022

In this series, which we aim to bring to you every week, we’ll be detailing some of the key numbers and trends that we’re seeing in terms of dealer connections made through our site.

As this data is considered somewhat representative of broader industry activity, and serves as one of the more insightful leading indicators for potential car sales, we hope it will fulfil a few purposes for our broad audience. First, to document not just how we’re performing as a business, but how dealers and the wider market stand to perform, so you don’t have to wait til that next set of official sales data.

Without further ado, here’s what happened over the last week.

Total new car enquiries

For the third week in a row, new car enquiries have gone backwards, and the result puts a damper on what looked like a promising turnaround in the new car market just a few weeks ago.

In the seven-day period ending Sunday, April 3, 2022, there were 1,168 dealer connections. In the prior week, the result was 1,245. This represents a decline of just over 6%, although the pull-back from the recent high is much more profound. 

The result also came despite PriceMyCar members looking at a broader range of vehicles, with four additional car brands in the spotlight over the last week compared with the preceding week.

Nonetheless, there was no post-budget bounce in terms of new car buying sentiment. We had anticipated there might be an uptick in interest once policy details from the federal budget came to light, but cash handouts and tax breaks have done little to shore up engagement from potential new car buyers. 

We can only conclude that with the price of petrol remaining elevated, and cost of living a very pressing concern for households around the country, we are looking at a period where discretionary spending for major items like a car could be on the backburner.

New car interest by brand

As alluded to earlier, there were 40 different brands on the radars of new car buyers last week, with the new additions being Citroen, Genesis, Mahindra and Tesla. 

Ford, Nissan and Toyota bucked the trend and saw interest increase on the week prior, although the gains were relatively modest in the broad scope of things.

On the other hand, perennial favourites Kia and Mazda encountered the biggest drop, which is indicative of the shaky sentiment hanging over the new car market.

Volvo was one of the bright spots among the data, with search queries in the Swedish brand up nearly 60% week-on-week, although it still has a long way to gain a foothold among the frontrunners in the market.

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