New Car Sales – VFACTS: July 2018

Sales slump across all classes; top-selling brands watch year-on-year numbers decline

The Australian motor vehicle industry experienced a 7.8 per cent decline in sales during July 2018 compared with July 2017, according to the latest VFACTS data, recording sales of 85,551, down from 92,754.

Only four light vehicle sales segments realised gains in July.

2018 cumulative sales now track .2% lower than at the same time in 2017.

Passenger car decline continues

Not one passenger-car segment sold more vehicles last month than during July 2017, and even SUVs struggled. Only small and upper large SUVs sold better in July 2018 than during the same month last year.

Passenger car sales fell by 20.2 per cent and Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) by 1.0 per cent. The light commercial segment grew just 0.1 per cent in comparison with the same month last year.

Going against the general market trend in July were sales in the micro car segment (+31.8%), small SUVs (+3.4%), 4X4 pick-ups (+6.4%) and upper large SUVs (+4.1%).

The large car segment (-56.3%); together with medium passenger cars (-31.3%), sports cars (-38.2%) and upper large category passenger cars (-46.1%) all experienced major declines.

Tasmania defies mainland

Excluding Tasmania (up 5.9 per cent), all other states and territories felt the July decline. NSW fell 9.6 per cent, Victoria down 6.3 per cent and Queensland dropped 5.8 per cent. The rest of the states all suffered greater declines: Western Australia (-8.1%), South Australia (-11.3%), the ACT (-12.2%) and the NT (-18.8%).

Toyota was the market leader in July with 19.8 per cent share, followed by Mazda (10.4%), Hyundai (8.3%), Mitsubishi (6.9%) and Ford (6.4%).

Some brands outside the top 10 managed to gain ground. Skoda tracked 18.3 per cent upwards, Volvo realised growth of 35 per cent to 528 sales and Jeep edged up 11 per cent. Peugeot, Citreon, Alfa Romeo and Infiniti all grew strongly from lower bases.

Isuzu – with just two models – continued its period of strong performance growing just under 200 sales from July 2017.

Golf plays strong round

The Toyota Hilux continued its stranglehold on market leadership and even improved its sales year-on-year. The Hilux led July with 3,747 sales, followed by the Ford Ranger (2,950), Toyota Corolla (2,594), Mazda3 (2,443) and Mazda CX-5 (2,233).

Volkswagen’s evergreen Golf had a huge month (1,628), improving over 600 sales year-on year to send its share of the small car segment past 11%. BMW’s 3 Series reclaimed ground on its Mercedes C-Class rival, up 42 per cent to 316 sales, however results didn’t go the way of Mitsubishi’s Triton – losing 2501 sales compared to last month and falling to 14th position from 3rd on the charts.

Supercar exotica continued to find buyers. Ferrari was up 17 per cent, Lamborghini gained 6 sales on July 2017 and McLaren went from 0 sales in July 2017, to 6 last month.

Source: FCAI

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