Every month at Prices People Pay, we analyse new data that our comprehensive used car price database has collected, to provide you the latest insights into the used car market. Here’s our summary for the month of February.
Top Sellers
Passenger vehicles still lead the way in volume of sales with February being a shorter month we’ve seen a reduction in stock available.
As sales of passenger vehicles decline in the new car market we expect to see people in the used car market turn them over as well to procure SUV’s. In February we’ve seen the gap between stock of passenger and SUV vehicles narrow. Moving forward we expect this occurrence to become more common
Light commercials continue to see some decline. With fleets and businesses looking to extend the life of their trade vehicles we expect the volume of light commercials to remain suppressed for the medium term.
Looking at individual models, the Toyota Camry retains the lead in February. Toyota continues to dominate the used car sales market with 4 of the top 5 most common sellers being Toyota badged. While the Camry and Hilux stay firm in the top 2 spots the Ranger, Corolla and Rav4 round out the remaining 3 spots.
SUV’s and commercial vehicles dominate the list this month alongside a small batch of passenger cars, mainly hatchbacks. As fewer passenger vehicles enter the used car supply we expect the list to continue being dominated by SUV’s in particular.
Comparing to last month
We expected a decrease in supply in February which took place with all segments seeing a downswing. As we move into 2020 we usually expect supply overall to steadily increase as businesses re-open following the end of the holiday period in January. However, with the current state of the economy this may be dampened this year.
Looking at individual models, there’s unsurprisingly more decreasing movements in supply across the board. Toyota has dominated most of the decreasing stock with the Camry, Corolla and Hilux seeing the largest decreases in stock from last month.
Interestingly the Suzuki saw a significant bump in February however we expect this to be a one off with supply petering out in the coming months.
Comparing to last year
Year-on-Year we’ve actually seen a reduction in sales overall for February, driven by a drop in Light Commercials. Due to the economic climate it’s likely more businesses are holding onto their current trade vehicles as opposed to turning them over for new ones.
The reduction in new car sales over the past 18 months is also continuing to have an effect in reducing supply entering the used car market, so we expect supply to decline somewhat gradually over the course of the next 12 months. Passenger vehicles have seen the sharpest decline in new car sales and we’ve seen some of that flowing into the used car market in February.
Compared to last year we’ve generally seen increases in passenger and SUV models like the i30, Golf and Tiguan. Conversely, light commercials like the Hilux and Ranger have seen a decline, most likely due to current economic conditions affecting businesses.
Going into 2020 we expect supply for SUV’s and Light Commercials to gradually pick up as businesses begin to spend capital and turnover their vehicles.
Data Source
Prices People Pay sources data exclusively from Datium Insights. Feel free to check out their products and services page for more info.
