2008 New Car Sales Record
January 6, 2009 by Alborz Fallah
While the automotive world is crying poor and demanding taxpayer dollars to stay afloat, sales figures from 2008 show the second best year for new car sales on record. Despite our population of about 20 million, we bought more than one million new vehicles last year.
Figured released today by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) indicate a total of 1,012,164 passenger cars, SUVs and commercial vehicles found new owners in 2008. A 3.6 per cent decline compared to 2007.
Therefore despite the doomsday reports, 2008 only saw a decline of 37,818 vehicles compared to 2007. “This is a good result and shows that the car industry finished the year on a strong note” FCAI Chief Executive Andrew McKellar said.
Even so, the full impact of the economic downturn is yet to be felt, December was the first month with the economic downturn in full effect and it resulted in a sales decline of 11.3 per cent compared to the same period in 2007.
This year is not going to be a tough year for the manufacturers, the FCAI predicts. Current estimates suggest the market will decline by a further 120,000 new vehicle sales to bring the 2009 total to 880,000.
“We must be realistic about the outlook for the year ahead and acknowledge the impact that the global financial crisis is having on the broader economy, nonetheless there are positives that will underpin demand in 2009, including lower fuel prices, reduced interest rates and the impact of additional fiscal measures implemented by the Federal Government,”" Mr McKellar said.
As far as segments go, the light commercial vehicles were the big winners last year, up 4.2 per cent (compared to 2007). The passenger car segment didn’t do so well, down 6.3 per cent meanwhile SUV sales were down 1.9 per cent and heavy commercials were down 3.5 per cent.Once again Toyota came out on top with 238,983 vehicles (23.6 per cent market share) followed by Holden with 130,338 (12.9 per cent of the market) and Ford with 104,715 vehicle sales (10.3 per cent market share).
The Holden Commodore was the top-selling vehicle model in 2008.
Print it: 
“2009 is not going to be a tough year for the manufacturers, the FCAI predicts.” – Um, shouldn’t that quote read “2009 IS going to be a tough year…” ?
Agreed Mark, It will be, but downshifting of cars will play a big part. EG Corporate exec gets his car allowance reduced so no BMW 318 but a holden Calais instead when the lease is up. I am going from a BF F6 to a FG XR6T. Times are tough!
In addition in tough times people tend to not upgrade their cars and hang on to them. The FCAI has smoked their pipe to much today.
What goes around, comes around. I think if manufacturers would just stop panicing and stop discounting cars so much and try to increase profitability everyone would be better off in the long term.
Two things sell cars, Product and Price, if you’ve got the right product for the right price it’ll sell.
Pretty amazing sales result. This is the first time ever that Australia has sold more vehicles per capita than the USA (in the early to mid 90s, the US outsold us by a factor of over 2 to 1). Times are changing.
Um, how exactly do Australians buy so many cars? Over one million in 2008? That many cars for a country that has about 21 million living in it? I think thats an amazing number and that they should be lucky. Thats a new car for one in twenty people. Astonishing.
Whats with the lack of information CA? Not even a top 10 list!
Still hungover from New Years are we?
Article title is misleading.. “2008 New Car Sales Record”.. say what?
Surely this is also an error?
“2009 is not going to be a tough year for the manufacturers, the FCAI predicts. Current estimates suggest the market will decline by a further 120,000 new vehicle sales to bring the 2009 total to 880,000.”
This guy is a wank.
How did the “year end on a solid note”, when it says the end of the year fell 11 point something percent.
does this guys get to see the figures before he opens his trap???
sorry buddy, but you aint sellin no ice to this little eskimo.
why does he always try to talk it up??
the industry and economy is stuffed, admitt it.
when ever some “expert” admitts a specific area is slumping, wind back the clock 6 months, and thats when it started to be stuffed.
we only get the bad news 6 months after the fact.
Same goes for industries other than the auto too.
when ever some one admitts some negativity, wind back the clock 6 months, and you will truely find thats when it started.
We shouldnt worry about what we are told, but rather what we arent told
The downturn took effect from September 2008. Now go compare the last quarter figures with the previous year or two and see the real facts. Next year will be a difficult year without any doubts. This crunch is bank/financial lead, if theres little money flowing round the markets then people will hang onto what they have.
Yes Alex – fihures about correct but bear in mind that last year Australians bought about 1million vehicles as well then 2 in 20 have a car a year two year old or younger. It’s not sustainable year on year at that level. I predict there will be about 3/4million cars sold this year and 600K 2010.
Why do you say it’s not sustainable at that level Cupid? Even though a million sounds like alot, a large portion of that million includes heavy trucks, vans, work utes, rentals, and other ‘non-personal’ fleet sales. This means that nowhere near 2 in 20 Australians have a car under 2 years old.
The cynic in me says the majority of those sales were ultimately to Australian financial institutions. I’d be surprised if those “sales” weren’t largely supporting australia’s ridiculously escalating credit crisis.
I’m Curious though, when was last time any sales people here on this blog sold a new car without some sort of finance?
Pretty obvious really Mark. Whats the total current vehicle count in Australian of regularly used vehicles. Given that most Australians hang onto their vehicles longer than say Europeans, then the sales will decline over the next 5 years say. You can only have so many cars on the road at a time with a given population. I see that a lot of Australians are replacing some pretty elderly cars given their increased wealth and cheapness of cars also they are using smaller cars (corolla) typically.
Cupid Stunt
“It’s not sustainable year on year at that level. I predict there will be about 3/4million cars sold this year and 600K 2010.”
Think about this, all it would take is 1 in 5 people to turn their cars over every 5 years, it’s most definately sustainable to sell around the 1,000,000 mark each year. The biggest problem is we’ll end up with a used car market like the US. 3/4/5 year old cars are worth nothing.
I think a near 50% drop off within two years is ridiculous.
Should have read 1 in 4, but we all know that’s not even a real number as we’re not taking into account government/business vehicles which a huge % would not even correlate with the population.
CA where can I read the full detail freom the Vfacts report?
There are about 14.5 million registered vehicles in Australia, according to the 2007 motor vehicle census. The average vehicle age is 10 years. That’s a very high average (by first world standards), so there is alot of room for improvement. Like you said, there are still a heap of very old vehicles on the road that need replacing. I think you do have a point that such high sales are only sustainable for so long, however when you consider how low vehicle sales were throughout the 1980s and the first half of the 90s, we *need* to make up for those years by selling more now. The US had about 12 years in a row of extremely high vehicle sales (’94-’06), and are only just now starting to drop off. Here in Australia, we’ve only had such highs for the past 6 years, since around ‘02-’03.
matty b,
have to agree with you re used car value’s.take a 05 vz commodore.wholesale average now is only about 9 grand.that makes ford 7-8 grand for same model.that is alot of car for the money,some with only 50-60ks on them.now if new cars do slow up,and things get tighter,these cars will be in big demand…
The thing is that every time another vehicle is sold, it’s another one coming into the country or simply being built and they don’t just disappear when nobody wants them anymore. It will get to the point where there are unwanted cars everywhere (as if there weren’t enough already) and what do you do with all of them? I agree that it’s not sustainable.
Go auto website has all the info.