CYPRUS: New car market struggling but Toyota remains top

Significant changes were recorded in the new car market last year with Toyota leading the way as the most popular brand of purchase in Cyprus, according to data released by the Road Transport Department.

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Toyota Yaris recorded the highest number of sales with 588 cars hitting the roads in 2018, the Nissan Qashqai came in second with 565, followed by the Toyota C-HR with 546 sales.

The Hyundai Tucson, Kia Rio, Ford Kuga, Kia Sportage, Ford Focus, Kia Picanto and the Nissan Juke complete the top 10 most sold cars in 2018.

The market appears to have been influenced by the efforts of various vehicle importers to add new brands to their fleet.

Pilakoutas Group has added the Renault and Mitsubishi brands to the range of vehicles sold at their showrooms.

The importers of BMW and Mini, are now in first place with 3,143 sales in 2018, followed by Volkswagen importers Unicars (2,045) with Toyota importers Dickran Ouzounian coming in third (1,973).

Among the list of top five dealers were A. Loutsios (Kia) and Michaels Automotive (Ford).

New car importers are battling it our for a bigger share of the market, while sales of new cars are suffering from a Cypriot preference for used cars – mostly Japanese.

New Toyotas had the largest market share with 13.8% increasing from 12.9% in 2017, followed by Nissan with 11.7% up from 12.1%.

Toyota Cyprus Marketing Director Dickran Ouzounian told the Financial Mirror that the new car market in general performed worse in 2017, while the second-hand market has seen a big increase in recent years.

Sales of new cars were just over 30% of all sales for 2018, while the rate of new cars to used cars sold in December being 22% to 78%.

Talking about Toyota sales, Ouzounian said: "Over 50% of our sales are hybrid vehicles and we expect that in 2019 there will be further growth due to the supply of new hybrid models”.