Industry Sales Results
Industry Sales Results

Top ten passenger, SUV and commercial brands of 2015

The results are in, 2015 was a record sales year for the new vehicle market, with about 1.155 million units sold. Read our detailed breakdown with all the data here.


But in addition, we thought we’d give a rundown of the top brands across the market’s three main broad sectors — passenger vehicles, SUVs and light commercials, because each list is quite different from the greater overall top ten.

Before we start, here’s a reminder of the overall top-ten selling vehicle makes in 2015:

  1. Toyota — 206,236 (up 1.3 per cent)
  2. Mazda — 114,024 (up 13.2 per cent)
  3. Holden — 102,951 (down 3 per cent)
  4. Hyundai — 102,004 (up 2 per cent)
  5. Mitsubishi — 71,743 (up 4.5 per cent)
  6. Ford — 70,454 (down 11.6 per cent)
  7. Nissan — 66,062 (up 0.1 per cent
  8. Volkswagen — 60,225 (up 9.9 per cent)
  9. Subaru — 42,600 (up 7.6 per cent)
  10. Honda — 40,100 (up 21.5 per cent)

Passenger cars:

Sales of passenger cars — sedans, hatchbacks, wagons, people-movers and sports cars — contracted 3 per cent in 2015 to 515,683 units, a market share of 44.6 per cent.

The only segments within this part of the market that didn’t go backwards were Light Cars, Medium Cars and People Movers.

Despite this drop, six out of the top-ten selling vehicles overall were passenger cars: Toyota Corolla (1), Mazda 3 (2), Hyundai i30 (4), Holden Commodore (6), Toyota Camry (7) and Volkswagen Golf (10). 

The top-ten passenger brands were:

  1. Toyota — 94,903, up 3 per cent
  2. Hyundai — 70,030, down 1.7 per cent
  3. Mazda — 59,348, down 5.4 per cent
  4. Holden — 54,234, down 8.6 per cent
  5. Volkswagen — 38,727, up 15.4 per cent
  6. Mercedes-Benz — 24,115, up 9.2 per cent
  7. Kia — 22,938, up 20.5 per cent
  8. Honda — 20,593, down 11.5 per cent
  9. Ford — 19,817, down 36.2 per cent
  10. BMW — 14,859, up 12.6 per cent

Audi, on 13,476, was knocking on the door, remarkably ahead of Mitsubishi (13,681), Subaru (13,476), Suzuki (12,767) and Nissan (11,880).

SUVs:

It was SUVs that drove the market growth in 2015, up 15.9 per cent to 408,471 units, enough to attain 35.4 per cent market share. At this rate, they’ll overtake passenger cars in 2017.

All SUV sectors were up. Small SUVs grew in volume by 27.4 per cent, Medium SUVs by 15.7 per cent, Large SUVs by 9.3 per cent and Upper Large SUVs by 3.8 per cent.

But in an indication of the even-ness across the segments, only one SUV managed to crack the overall market top-ten — the Mazda CX-5 in ninth spot.

The top-ten SUV brands were:

  1. Toyota — 59,412, up 4.9 per cent
  2. Mazda — 41,176, up 65.3 per cent
  3. Nissan — 39,925, up 18.3 per cent
  4. Mitsubishi — 32,724, up 20 per cent
  5. Subaru — 30,124, up 7 per cent
  6. Hyundai — 27,377, up 12 per cent
  7. Holden — 25,261, up 9.2 per cent
  8. Jeep — 24,418, down 19.7 per cent
  9. Honda — 19,507, up 100.5 per cent
  10. Ford — 16,944, down 5.4 per cent

Light commercials:

Light commercial vehicle (LCV) sales grew only 0.6 per cent in 2015. With lots of new-generation utes launching, there were lulls caused by short supply to contend with. Read/watch our eight-way comparison of those new versions here.

There was also notably softer demand from Western Australia — a major LCV sales driver.

Light Vans grew 17.5 per cent while Medium Vans grew 7.6 per cent, but 4x4 utes were stable at 0.3 per cent up, while 4x2 ute sales fell 2.8 per cent.

The top-ten LCV brands were:

  1. Toyota — 51,921, down 5.1 per cent
  2. Ford — 32,898, up 8.9 per cent
  3. Mitsubishi — 25,338, up 4.4 per cent
  4. Holden — 23,456, down 0.8 per cent
  5. Isuzu Ute — 14,640, up 21.5 per cent
  6. Nissan — 14,257, down 13.4 per cent
  7. Mazda — 13,500, up 3.4 per cent
  8. Volkswagen — 11,646, up 1.8 per cent
  9. Hyundai — 4597, up 5.8 per cent
  10. Renault — 2248, down 2.6 per cent
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