Lux makes bucks – and vice versa

Outside of the top five, we see just how tough the car market has become because of the COE situation. There’s little hope for even these brands to replicate their sales of 2021, and every one of them have dipped registration figures and lost significant points of market share. In fact, competition is so tight, a mere 40 units spans the entire sixth to tenth position ranking.

On the other end of the scale, the boom in luxury car sales just shows how differently those buyers think compared to the mainstream. Looking at German luxury brands alone (Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche), their total sales of 5,702 make up 34 percent of the total 16,567 cars registered in the first six months. In other words, more than a third of new cars were German luxmobiles.

Porsche’s the standout here, having gone from 13th place in 2021 to eighth, and a large part of that success is due to the timely Taycan EV. It’s become one of the brand’s best-selling cars here with 118 sold. 

Just as it was in the year Porsche outsold Honda (2013), it’s the carmakers with serious brand equity that ride the high COE wave – like BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. Need more evidence?

Super-luxury cars are doing better than ever and most are on track to equal their 2021 results. Bentley has sold an impressive 68 cars this year, Rolls-Royce an even crazier 54 – compare that to their total registrations in 2021 at 103 and 90 respectively. Meanwhile, Ferrari has registered 49 cars this year and if it doesn’t exceed its previous year total of 61, we’d be quite surprised. 

 
EV brands bubbling up 

You’re probably thinking – where’s Tesla? The American EV maker made a big splash last year by jolting straight into the final Top 10 position. But we didn’t expect that situation to last since it was really only a single-model brand (the Model 3 sedan) until now. Still, it’s done quite well with 315 units registered to date, and that’s good enough for 11th position.

Even more interesting is the 12th placed brand: Chinese EV maker BYD, with 300 units registered. Granted most of those are E6 MPVs for private-hire fleets, but the recently-launched Atto 3 SUV made a big splash here and with 100 orders on hand, it should make BYD’s end-of-year results interesting.

That would not have been possible if BYD was a regular petrol car brand. Case in point, MG, the Chinese brand which has both its very bang-for-buck MG HS SUV (petrol) and the MG ZS EV. In 2021, it roughly sold twice as many petrol cars as EVs – and now situation is totally reversed.

MG registered 186 cars here, with 163 being electrified. Last year MG was the second-best selling EV brand (that we know of for sure*), but it does show that EVs are bucking the trend of ‘high COE must have luxury brand’, thanks to help from rebates and VES.

That’s all for our mid-year roundup – we’ll also be posting stories about electrified cars and body type, so stay tuned. 

*Because the LTA lumps all electrified cars – EV, PHEV, hybrid – together in registration figures, we can’t tell definitively unless a brand sells only EVs, as is the case with BYD and Tesla.

Pages: 1 2