Weekly Dealer Car Enquiries: October 16, 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

New car enquiries fell in the week ending Sunday, October 9, 2022, with the total volume of queries down 9.7% to 1,498. In the preceding week, there were 1,658 inbound enquiries.

Recent days have been underscored by yet another drop in consumer confidence across the nation. The ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Index fell 2.4 points to 82.2 points, which means the current result is down 24.8 points compared with the same time last year. In comparison with the rest of this year’s readings, the most recent result is also 8.1 points off the year-to-date average of 90.3 points.

With the recent floods that have taken hold across Victoria, the industry is now dealing with another headwind as new car buyers are understandably preoccupied by a major disaster at a time when interest rates are rising and there is a cost of living crunch.

Data from the recent survey also led to 45% of respondents saying their families are ‘worse off’ financially than this time last year, and more than a third (38%) expect ‘bad times’ for the economy over the coming year. As many as 48% of respondents believe now is a ‘bad time’ to buy a major household item.

New car interest by brand

While Hyundai and Mitsubishi managed to buck the trend last week and edge out a small increase in new car quote requests, category leaders Kia and Ford went backwards and were the biggest drag on the overall market.

There were also some modest movements across other names, including M.G., Nissan, and Volkswagen, which all recorded a pullback last week, while Volvo and Audi fared better, albeit off low starting positions.

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