Marque set to open more dealerships after making rapid market gains in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mitsubishi Motors New Zealand (MMNZ) is aiming to topple Toyota from the number-one spot for new vehicles after almost doubling its sales in the 2022 financial year.
The marque sold 23,665 units in the year ending March 31, an increase of 92 per cent from the previous financial year when it sold 12,360 cars.
The uplift in performance gave Mitsubishi a market share of 14.4 per cent for the 2022 financial year, second only to Toyota on 18 per cent, but it is leading the way in the year to date.
It marks a steady improvement in fortunes over the past decade as the carmaker only had the eighth largest market share in 2011.
Daniel Cook, MMNZ’s chief operating officer, says: “We've been building our brand in New Zealand, gradually incrementing our sales and the pandemic set a new foundation for business, and there were a lot of challenges.”
Three factors arising from the Covid-19 pandemic had created a “perfect storm” for the company to gain market share, he tells the NBR.
Firstly, he says, no one predicted a huge boom in the economy, which drove a lot of demand for vehicles. Secondly, unforeseen major supply issues created opportunities for MMNZ to get vehicles into the market. And the third factor was the government’s introduction of the clean car discount in April.
Cook says after the first Covid lockdown, it decided the demand for new vehicles was still there and continued advertising through the mid part of 2020.
“It paid off. By July 2020 some of our dealers were setting new all-time sales records.”
Supply challenges created by the pandemic meant MMNZ had to place larger orders intermittently but Cook explains this benefited the company when rivals who acted differently were hit by the semiconductor chip shortage.
“Previously, customers expected their new vehicle within a week. As market supply tightened up, they began to understand that they’d have to wait a bit longer – only the wait for a Mitsubishi was less than it was for most other brands.”
The clean car feebates have also benefited Mitsubishi, which has held 60 per cent of the plug-in hybrid (PHEV) market since 2013.
Cook notes MMNZ is well placed to contest overall leadership in the new-vehicle market in 2022, which will allow it to increase the size of its dealership network.
“We'll be opening at least another couple of stores over the next 18 months,” he adds.