Weekly Dealer Car Enquiries: August 14, 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

The signs of a ‘bottom’ in the new car market now look fairly clear, with new car buying interest, as measured by the number of dealer enquiries, putting in another steady performance in the week ending Sunday, August 14, 2022.

In total, there were 1,312 new car enquiries over said period, which was just shy of 1% higher than the preceding week. A number of consecutive weeks now have seen figures that were broadly comparable, which suggests the market has plateaued somewhat. 

In the context of a rate hike cycle, the robustness of each week’s data is a fairly encouraging result, even if the overall volume of queries is still well off the highs from some of the peak periods we have witnessed since the early days of 2020. After all, with no more stimulus support in place, and the end of ultra-loose monetary policy, some of those record highs were artificially inflated.

Consumer spending is still holding up reasonably well, although it is major household purchases where there is some weakness, and one of the reasons the car market isn’t quite making any clear ground.

New car interest by brand

It was a game of musical chairs at the top of the list of the most sought after car brands. Although the top five brands were all the same, with the exception of Kia, the order of the other four names switched about following mixed results. 

Hyundai was the clear winner of the bunch, pulling ahead of its nearest peers, although still generating only a fraction over half the interest that its sister brand does.  

Outside the top five, Isuzu made a strong charge forward, with dealer connections up one-third week-over-week, while Toyota and Volvo were also beneficiaries as interest in Subaru waned.

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