Coming off a previous record year for new vehicle sales, the Australian new car market has already seen an increase in sales over January 2015. In January, 2016 we registered 84,373 new vehicles which is an increase of 2.7% over January last year (82,116).

As the results agree, consumers didn’t hesitate to spend money on new vehicles. The ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence results actually show stabilisation in the last few weeks after consumer confidence was on the decline during January for multiple weeks.

Interstate new vehicle sales battle

It is New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia who are leading the strong start to the year with increases of 6.0%, 3.8% and 3.0% respectively. These strong starts offset the not so great start of Northern Territory who is down -5.4%, Tasmania which is down 4.8% and Western Australia down 3.0%.

Last year, it was the sports utility vehicles (SUV) that were driving out of showrooms by themselves and in January the trend is continuing, only at an improved rate. January new vehicle sales of SUV’s improved by 19.5% compared to January last year. This vehicle breakdown segment wouldn’t be the same unless passenger new vehicles were to take a hit and without too much surprise, they did by dropping 11.5% on January 2015. It’s the micro passenger new vehicles sales which aren’t necessarily helping the cause, down by 47.8% from last year, and large passenger vehicles down -32.8% not even the people movers (up 34.1%) and sports passenger vehicles (up 38.6) can lift the overall decrease in passenger vehicle sales.

FCAI Chief Executive, Tony Weber said “January 2016 sales are particularly strong given the growth over 2015, which was a record year for new vehicle sales”.

“Sales of SUVs and light commercial vehicles have increased significantly compared to January 2015 figures. SUV sales are up 19.5 per cent and light commercial vehicle sales are up 11.9 per cent”.

“Combined, the segments accounted for more than 56 per cent of the total new car market in January 2016”.

“Business buyers showed confidence in January, with sales to business buyers up 14.4 per cent compared to January 2015. Sales to government were consistent with January 2015 sales figures and sales to private buyers fell 5.1 per cent”.

Whilst Ford, Holden and Toyota are the last of the remaining locally manufacturing OEM’s, consumer still largely prefer what’s on offer from cars who have an overseas origin. There were 25,502 new vehicle sales which were imported from Japan, this is the most from our all of our overseas friends. Thailand was the second highest with 19,295 and after Korea, Germany and USA each imported 9,699, 6,638 and 4,003 respectively. Overall, we imported 80,217 vehicles out of the total 84,373 new vehicles sold during January.

Top makes for January 2016

1. Toyota — 12,453

2. Mazda — 10,016

3. Hyundai — 7001

4. Holden — 6824

5. Nissan — 5563

6. Ford — 5504

7. Mitsubishi — 5007

8. Volkswagen — 4241

9. Subaru — 3405

10. Kia — 3116

Top models for January 2016

1. Mazda 3 — 3722

2. Toyota Corolla — 2758

3. Ford Ranger — 2418

4. Toyota HiLux — 2341

5. Hyundai Tucson — 2065

6. Hyundai i30 — 1852

7. Mazda CX-5 — 1750

8. Volkswagen Golf 1692

9. Holden Colorado — 1691

10. Nissan Navara — 1670