Too many car brands are here - and it’s too late to do anything about it.

SEVENTY new vehicle brands now representing in New Zealand, with speculation potentially a dozen more are on the way, is simply too many and will spell disaster.

However calling on any kind of political assistance to curtail the influx would be ineffectual, a senior industry figure says.

Unlike his equivalents in Australia, Kia New Zealand managing director Todd McDonald avoided calling out the flood of Chinese brands over the past 24 months as being problematic.

However, it’s a matter of record more than a dozen brands from the world’s largest car-producing country have set up in NZ in just the past two years.

McDonald doesn’t shy from competition, but says the new car market is becoming “unsustainable" because it simply cannot support so many competitors.

He holds confidence his own make having made it into a top tier club of four makes that cumulatively achieve half of all new car sales should present a degree of immunity.

“If you look at the four main brands, they’re consistently 50 percent of the market. They do change over 10 years, and luckily we’re one of them.”

But he also has concern the market will fall into disarray, with potential of a high casualty count among smaller players chasing increasingly marginal market share.

Asked if he imagined brands will be forced to enter gladiatorial battle from which blood will spill, he replied: “Correct.”

But no-one - not sellers, not buyers - will win if brands crash and burn. As is increasingly likely.

“It's actually unsustainable. It doesn't work for the size of the volume of our New Zealand market,” McDonald said.

Not only newcomers but also some established makes might in the coming year or so find the scene so untenable they are forced to abdicate.

Asked which faced greater jeopardy, he offered: “I think there's risk across the board.”

This very same concern has caused alarm in Australia, which outwardly is a far more robust andccertainly much larger market.

An annual additional one million new cars sold is roughly 10 times’ New Zealand’s rate, which fluctuates between 140,000 and 160,000 units.

Nonetheless over there the industry is calling for pausing the entry of any additional players, arguing its members are being battered to point of crisis point by over-stocking now.

Australia’s carexpert website says this follows a third-quarter 2026 result which saw the industry’s first negative quarterly profitability figure since the fourth quarter of 2008 – during the thick of the Global Financial Crisis.

It reports expert opinion that the average net profit for new-car dealers in the quarter was -0.2 percent, while fixed costs have risen by more than 50 percent over 10 years.

The Australian Auto Dealers Association, a powerful lobby group, is calling for political intervention there to freeze further brand incursions.

The AADR’s closest equivalent here is the Motor Industry Association, which represents most but not all distributors.

McDonald doesn’t dispute the MIA has political sway, but says intervention would be pointless because NZ having a free market approach.

He agrees the challenges here are no different, saying: “From an industry point of view, we have an … issue with dealer sustainability that we all need to recognise.”

But he also believes it’s too late to stop the flood. “We're effectively already at a position where, in my opinion, we're oversaturated for the size of our market.”

Speaking today at the launch of a new generation of the Seltos compact crossover, which in its surpassed first format stood firm as Kia NZ’s strongest selling car, the industry veteran noted the number of brands operating locally has grown substantially over the past decade.

Industry sentiment is that upwards of a dozen more makes are considering entering NZ over the next 18 months, all from China, and some yet without any national representation.

McDonald did not address that but noted 16 new makes have added just in the past five years.

In 2016 Kiwis could chose from 46 automotive brands and in 2021 that had risen to 51.

Right now 66 brands are battling over approximately half of the market, he contended.

What’s more important for the automotive industry in New Zealand is that in 2026 we’ve got 70 brands. That means 66 brands are chasing 50% of the market. It’s actually unsustainable. It doesn’t work for the size and volume of the New Zealand market,” he says.

Kia has been a big riser in NZ over the past 20 years, and with expectation of achieving at least 10,000 registrations this year, has become a top four performer for passenger and light commercial.

It is rubbing shoulders with Ford and Mitsubishi, with all three comfortably behind Toyota, which has been the industry leader for decades and generally accounts for at least quarter of all new car registrations here.