It was this time last year that it started to come clear 2015 was going to set a new record for the most vehicles sold. Fast forward to the present time and it looks like we’re in the same position with new vehicle sales in 2016 up 2.8% on last year. This year to date, 887,076 new vehicles have been sold in Australia, 102,696 were sold in the month of September. Compared to the month of September last year, this is an increase of 1.3% which isn’t a large percentage however there’s some interesting statistics when all these figures are broken down by location.
Battle of the states and territories!
Starting with the good news first, Northern Territory and South Australia had increases of 12.1% and 11.8% compared to September last year. Using this same comparison, the next highest performance increase was Victoria who improved by 3.9%, followed by Australian Capital Territory (1.7%) and New South Wales with 1.3% however that’s where the good news ends. Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania were all unable to live up to their previous year’s performance for September recording figures of -3.4%, -3.8% and -0.8% respectively.
What’s the vehicle type segmentation?
It’s the breakdown of vehicle type which reveals where the future of the market is going. Passenger vehicles are continuing to decline in new vehicle sales as they record a -5.8% performance this year to date. You’re seeing more and more SUV’s and Light Commercial vehicles on the road as they have improved in sales by 9.9% and 11.2% this year to date. Comparing the month of September 2015 to 2016 see’s passenger vehicles decline in performance by -8.7%, SUV’s increased sales by 6.8%, Light Commercial sales increased by 17.9% and Heavy Commercial had a marginal increase by less than 1%.
The Chief Executive of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, Tony Weber, said that the increased model diversity of SUVs was generating an abundance of choice for consumers.
“The trend in increased consumer preference for SUVs and light commercials was accompanied by a decline in sales of passenger vehicles by 8.7% in September, compared with the same month last year,” Mr Weber said.
“What we are seeing in Australia with the increased market share held by SUV sales, with the segment share up 2.4% year to date compared with 2015, is not unlike what is occurring in other mature markets.”
Top Brands
Toyota remained the market leading brand in September with a 16.3% share, followed by Mazda with 11.7%, Hyundai 9.1%, Holden 8.3%, Ford 7.1%, Mitsubishi 6.5%, Nissan 5.0%, Volkswagen 4.3%, Subaru 3.9% and Honda with 3.7%.
Top Selling Vehicle
The top-selling vehicle for September 2016 was the Mazda3 with 3,491, followed by the Toyota Corolla (3,423 sales), Toyota Hilux (3,209 sales), Ford Ranger (2,903), and Hyundai i30 (2,741 sales), Mazda CX-5 (2662 sales) and then the Holden Commodore on 2366 sales. Rounding out the top 10 was the Mitsubishi Triton (2246 sales), Hyundai Tucson (2209 sales) and last spot is the Hyundai Accent on 2189.
