Weekly Dealer Car Enquiries: January 9, 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

There are encouraging signs to start the new year, with new car enquiries posting another week-on-week increase in the seven-day period ending Sunday, January 9. In total, the number of dealer connections lifted 20.6% to 1,449. The low from a couple weeks ago now looks to be well and truly behind us, with overall queries now double those recorded heading into the Christmas holidays.

It is likely the prospect of discounts on end-of-year models may be drawing some new car buyers into the market. However, as we have reported previously, there is currently far less scope for discounting and negotiating prices in light of the supply issues plaguing a number of auto-makers across the country.

New car interest by brand

All of the leading car brands got a boost in interest last week, but that shift in sentiment was most evident for Mazda, which returned to the top of the list for the most sought-after cars. That comes after a short absence where it’s dominance was toppled by Kia.

Hyundai returned to the top five after a short period where interest in the Korean brand was beginning to wane. Isuzu also had a bumper week, with queries building up nicely for the brand that is admired for its D-Max ute, however, it couldn’t quite pip Subaru to make the list of frontrunners, with the Japanese brand instead holding onto its position thanks to relatively robust interest over recent weeks.

RAM and M.G. were two of the only brands to have seen a drop-off, but the size of the pull-back appears to be in keeping with weekly fluctuations for these lower-volume brands.

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