In this series, which we hope to bring to you on a regular basis, we’ll be detailing some of the key numbers and trends that we’re seeing in terms of dealer connections 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 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 leads
New car quote requests in the week ending Sunday, April 26, totalled 577.
Compared with the week prior, this marked an increase of 7.6% and continues what has been a gradual rebound from the significantly lower results we saw in late March, where enquiries were around 300.
As lockdowns begin to be eased in certain states, and also draw closer towards being eased in other locations, sentiment appears to have improving slightly. Nonetheless, this is relative to a very low base from recent weeks, when it appeared the virus would likely spiral out of control, so it needs to be put into context that buying interest is still in the vicinity of being down by as much as 40% compared with pre-COVID-19.
New car interest by brand
In terms of popular car brands, there was an increase in buying interest for Ford, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Subaru and Volkswagen, among others.
In what is another sign that Kia has become one of the most-favoured vehicles on the market right now, the brand leapt to the top of the charts for all enquiries collected across the last week. The brand also recorded the highest growth in percentage terms among any of the leading makes.
With 68 leads in total, Kia is still tracking in line with the interest we saw in early March. This is as good as any other auto-maker’s performance across the last couple months, yet alone at the upper end of the sales charts.
Elsewhere, there was a slump in interest in Nissan vehicles, with leads during down to just 12 in the week ending April 26, compared with 29 in the week prior.
|
Prospective New Car Buyer Numbers |
April 20-26 |
April 13-19 |
% Change in Leads |
|
68 |
45 |
51.1% |
|
|
61 |
53 |
15.1% |
|
|
55 |
45 |
22.2% |
|
|
51 |
39 |
30.8% |
|
|
42 |
36 |
16.7% |
|
|
37 |
37 |
0% |
To get FREE access to instant pricing on just about every new car make and model, plus guaranteed discounts, sign up today
