Hawaii drivers have been buying more vans, SUVs and pickups as lower prices at the pump boost sales of larger vehicles.

Overall, new vehicle registrations rose 2.4 percent during the first five months of this year, according to a report due out today by the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association (HADA).

The light trucks category, which includes vans and SUVs, increased its market share to 59.3 percent from 54.3 percent in the year-ago period, according to the Hawaii Auto Outlook report. Car sales held a 40.7 percent market share through May. There were 23,315 new vehicles sold through the first five months compared with 22,773 in the year-earlier period.

Light trucks’ market share increased by more than 10 percentage points from 2012. Lower fuel prices and low interest rates have made those vehicles more affordable in an improving economy.

“A higher demand for light trucks is likely due to the lower gas prices we’ve been seeing at the pump,” Servco Pacific Inc. President Rick Ching said. “The redesigned 2016 Toyota Tacoma, Hawaii’s most popular light truck, was also highly anticipated and has been in high demand since its release late last year.”

Servco, the distributor for Toyota, Lexus and Subaru vehicles in Hawaii, accounted for more than one-third of the new vehicles sold during the first five months.

Toyota remained the top-selling brand in the state with a 28.5 percent market share through the first five months of the year. It was followed by Honda at 14.3 percent, Nissan at 10.4 percent and Ford at 8 percent. Servco’s other top brands, Subaru and Lexus, had market shares of 3.0 and 2.8 percent, respectively.

Slow growth rates

While sales increased in the first five months of the year, the pace of growth was slower than last year’s growth.

The 2.4 percent rise in registrations, which included a gain of 0.6 percent in April and May, follows a 5.7 percent increase for full-year 2015 over the previous year. The report projects that new vehicle sales will increase just 2 percent this year to 58,250 after ending 2015 with 57,094 registrations. Since 2010 Hawaii’s new vehicle sales have grown by 75 percent.

The auto sales report is the first to be released in 11 months. The data, normally released on a quarterly basis, had been held up for several months due to prolonged negotiations between the Hawaii Department of Motor Vehicles and automotive data processing companies. Until today’s report the last data available had covered the third quarter of 2015, which ended Sept. 30.

HADA’s Executive Director Dave Rolf attributed much of the small five-month increase in overall sales to unbalanced inventory that was partly due to the unavailability of data.

“The market is stronger, I think, than is reflected in the numbers, but because of factors like the nonavailability of data for planning, the market may show no growth for the remaining part of the year,” Rolf said. “Oahu was up less than 1 percent. Dealers were operating in the blind because of the unavailability of numbers, and that caused the dealers to be more conservative in marketing vehicles. That caused some of the slowdown (in sales growth).

“The lack of available data also contributed to a situation that led to an inventory imbalance between cars and trucks. Cars and trucks, for dealer inventories, are ordered months in advance, and the lack of data led to an improper balance.”

“Trucks, SUVS and vans have many attributes, and with low interest rates and all the great opportunities to buy, vehicle sales continue to climb,” Rolf said. “We anticipate and hope that it will continue to grow as projected.”

HADA President Bill van den Hurk, who also is president of Aloha Kia, said when the inventory wasn’t available this year, it put a strain on everybody.

“Most of us dealers had a shortage of inventory,” he said. “There was a shortage of the proper inventory because of the market shift toward trucks and SUVs. It takes some time for a manufacturer to manufacture the product. You need at least a three- to four-month lead time to change all of that.”

Kauai leads market share

Among the four counties, Kauai had the largest market share of light trucks through May at 73.4 percent while Hawaii island was at 65.4 percent, Maui at 64.4 percent and Oahu at 56.5 percent.

Overall, new vehicle sales jumped 10.2 percent on Kauai, rose 8.1 percent on Hawaii island, gained 4 percent on Maui and edged up 0.8 percent on Oahu where 71 percent of the new vehicles were registered.

“The automotive industry, Servco included, was fortunate to have many years of strong growth,” Ching said. “We’ve already seen sales this summer start to increase, and we anticipate strong sales for the rest of 2016 — maybe not at the same growth rates we’ve seen in previous years, but still an increase year over year.”

New vehicle sales in the state have been slowing as they follow the national trend. Hawaii’s new car sales were up 9.7 percent in the third quarter of 2015, up 5 percent in the fourth quarter, ahead 4.1 percent in the first quarter of this year and up just 0.6 percent during April and May of the second quarter.

Nationally, new vehicle sales rose 6.2 percent in the third quarter and increased 6.4 percent in the fourth quarter before rising just 2.5 percent in the first quarter of this year and declining 1.1 percent in the second quarter.

Sales of hybrid/electric vehicles in Hawaii have been trending lower over the past three years but increased slightly in the second quarter from the first quarter with a market share of 4.8 percent for April and May. That compares with a market share of more than 7 percent in the third quarter of 2013.

Japanese vehicles had a 63.6 percent market share in Hawaii. Domestic vehicles, which include vehicles sold by General Motors, Ford, FCA (excluding Fiat) and Tesla, were next at 20.7 percent. European vehicles had a 9.2 percent market share, and Korean vehicles were at 6.6 percent.