NZ sales best in decades

Holden's Captiva took top sales spot in New Zealand last month.

Captiva takes pole position in the new car field

New Zealand's new car market has had its strongest May in 23 years, with both passenger and commercial vehicles recording strong sales.

Holden's medium-sized SUV, the Captiva, took out top spot in new car sales for May - not only proving that the crossover segment is now a market dominator, but also knocking out the perennial favourite, Toyota's Corolla, from the number one spot.

Holden had two passenger vehicles in the top 10 - 304 Captivas registered and Commodore in sixth spot with 195 sales - though you can expect to see that figure increase throughout the year as the new VF Commodore leaves the South Australia factory and goes on sale here.

Sitting at 11th spot was Holden's medium-sized Cruze with 134 new passenger registrations for May. It also had the Colorado truck in third spot for commercial registrations last month.

"Our May sales performance tracked ahead of the market on the back of the Colorado launch this year and the retail offers on both Cruze and Captiva," said Holden NZ managing director Jeff Murray.

"We are very pleased with the way we have been continuing to grow and given the number of Holden car launches over the next three to five months we expect to be able to build on the solid results from the first half of the year."

But Toyota remained the market leader overall in May with 19.4 per cent of market share, with 1072 passenger cars and 659 commercials registered.

Holden was second in total sales for May, with 10.1 per cent of the market share, closely followed by Hyundai with 685 registrations.

The top selling commercial for May was the Ford Ranger with 483 registrations, with Toyota Hilux number two with 447.