Weekly Dealer Car Enquiries: January 2, 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

In what is the first positive sign we’ve seen for well over a month, new car enquiries surged last week, even with New Year’s festivities in the middle of proceedings. The number of dealer connections rose from 738 in the seven-day period ending Sunday, December 26, to a total of 1,202 in the week ending Sunday, January 2. 

As we outlined briefly in our last report, the final week of the year is one that typically sees a wave of new car buying activity on account of end-of-year clearance sales and the like. On that note, it is encouraging to see that searches were certainly higher, although the number is still well off the comparable week from this time last year. By way of comparison, new car enquiries rose more than 80% in the same end-of-year period last year, but that tally saw enquiries eclipse 1,600 leads.

Supply issues continue to remain a challenging matter for dealerships across the country, and we would say this is having an influence on overall figures as individual buyers now appear to be exercising slightly more reservation in the breadth of options on their shortlists.

New car interest by brand

Practically every brand got a major lift last week, and that meant there was a bit of a reshuffle among the top five names. Kia held onto top spot as the most sought-after make of car, and with new releases joining the company’s stable, it’s not hard to see why the South Korean brand is so popular.

Mazda and Subaru were the next-best performers, and both cracked the ton after seeing interest leap around 70% each. The 2022 Subaru Forester and upcoming 2022 Mazda CX-5 are among the most-popular cars we’re seeing come up in searches, driving a lot of activity here. 

Further down the list, M.G. had a strong rebound, and that is being led by the MG 3, which is the most-affordable automatic car on sale across the country - and unlike other auto-makers, with stock generally quite readily available.  

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