Fewer Hawaii residents are buying vehicles, as the number of registered cars and light trucks has dropped for the second consecutive quarter.

New vehicle registrations fell 1.6 percent in the third quarter and are now virtually flat for the year with a 0.6 percent increase over the same period in 2015, according to a report due out today by the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association. The nine-month gain beat the U.S. market’s 0.6 percent decline over the same period.

“It’s also not out of the question that the market could move marginally higher,” said Jeff Foltz, editor of Hawaii Auto Outlook, which produced the report using data from IHS Markit. “Regardless of the direction the market heads in, registrations next year should still exceed 56,000 units, which on an historical basis is a very good performance for the state market.”

Foltz projects that new vehicle registrations will rise 0.5 percent this year to 57,400 from 57,094. That figure was revised lower from the 57,600 full-year forecast in Hawaii Auto Outlook’s second-quarter report.

The third quarter continued a decline that was revealed in the second-quarter report. New vehicle registrations are now in danger of falling for a full year for the first time since 2010, the last of five consecutive declining years after they peaked at 70,268 in 2005.

New vehicle registrations can be representative of auto sales. The two don’t always align because a buyer can purchase a vehicle one month and register it in another month. The IHS Markit data are based on state Department of Motor Vehicles registrations.

There were 43,580 new vehicle registrations during the first nine months of 2016, up from 43,324 in the year-earlier period.

The light-trucks category, which includes vans, SUVs and pickups, grew slightly in popularity in the third quarter. The market share for light trucks expanded to 60.3 percent while cars made up 40.7 percent.

For automakers, Toyota maintained its leading position in the market with a share of 28.5 percent. Toyota’s Tacoma and 4Runner were the top sellers among all models registered statewide. Those models were followed by the Honda Civic, Honda CR-V, Toyota Corolla, Toyota RAV4, Ford F-Series, Honda Accord, Toyota Camry and Nissan Frontier.

Hybrid and electric vehicles saw an increase in market share at 5.4 percent, up from under 5 percent in the second quarter.