Fleet sales keep six-cylinders alive
The Ford Falcon and the Holden Commodore are two of the best selling cars in Australia (competing with the Toyota Corolla). Nonetheless, whilst the Toyota Corolla (and the Mazda3) do quite well selling to the public, the Falcon and Commodore get the majority of their numbers from Fleet Sales.
Ford sales & marketing vice-president Mark Winslow believes that this is due to corporate-fleet drivers which still prefer the big aussie six to the smaller, more fuel efficient four-cylinders. So far this year, there has been no big migration from six cylinders to fours in the corporate fleet-car market.
‘‘There are more and more drivers with salary packaging and novated leasing,’’ Mr Winslow said,
It seems that given the "I don't have to pay for fuel" attitude of Salary Packaging, buyers are not concerned about the fuel economy of their cars.
However ford's aging Falcon isn't doing that great against the VE Commodore. With a decrease of 1096 sales from March 2006 yo 2007, and a decrease in market share (family/large car market) of nearly 10% has given Holden and Toyota something to laugh about.
‘‘In a market of 1 million units, there’s 140,000 cars out there that you can get a third of. It’s still not a bad business to be in.’’ Mr Winslow said
To keep buyers going back to Ford before the new model shows up:
- A new ES value pack available now
- European Sports Pack coming around December
- improvement on the Fairmont Ghia (limited details)
- Falcon XR6, new price of $37,990.
Nonetheless, ford is adamant the new falcon (codename Orion and expected to be here early next year) will improve sales and put Ford back to a "30 to 35 per cent (market share) of large-car sales".
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