Utes rise to the top in October

Latest new car sales figures shows Australia’s love of utes continues to grow.

Dom Tripolone

01:0104 November 2016

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Utes rise to the top in October

Utes dominated the sales charts in October as SUV sales slid.

While the month of September belonged to SUVs, October has crowned the humble workhorse ute as Australia's favourite car.

The Toyota HiLux was the highest selling vehicle throughout October, according to data released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries today, with 3352 units sold.

This brings the HiLux to the top of the charts for 2016 with total sales for the year up to 34,179,just pipping its stable mate the Toyota Corolla which has total sales of 34,158.

Close on its heels was it arch-rival the Ford Ranger with 3220 sales for last month, elevating it fourth spot on the best selling vehicles of 2016.

Overall the light commercial segment - which also includes vans - is up 10.1 per cent on last year, which makes it the highest growth market in Australia.

While SUVs sales slid compared to its bumper September figures - an 8 per cent decrease - the segment still enjoyed an 4.9 per cent increase over the same month last year and total sales up 9.4 per cent on 2015.

SUV sales were highlighted by strong performances by the Hyundai Tucson and Nissan X-Trail, which held the ninth and tenth position for top sellers in October.

The Mazda CX-5 had the biggest fall from grace in October dropping from 2662 sales in September to 1612 for October as the Japanese car maker prepares for the arrival of a new model.

Passenger car sales were lead by the usual players - the Toyota Corolla, Hyundai i30 and Mazda3 - which held places three through five on the October sales chart.

And while these cars experience strong monthly performances it hides the fact that passenger cars sales as a whole of the market continue to drop, with sales 7.4 per cent lower than October 2015 and down a total of 6 per cent year-on-year.

October overall was a slow month for car sales, with sales down 1 per cent on last year, but the market is up 2.4 per cent on the year with the market all but assured of eclipsing last year's total sales figures of 1.5 million.