Industry Sales Results
Industry Sales Results

January-March 2016 VFACTS:: New vehicle sales, ups and downs of the first quarter

We’re now into the second quarter of 2016, meaning we are able to deduce some Australian car industry trends for the year-to-date (YTD).


Leading the pack in the sales race is the Mazda 3, which is a nose ahead of the Toyota Corolla, though sales of both of these small cars are down. Rounding out the top five were the Toyota HiLux, Hyundai i30 and Ford Ranger.

Toyota and Mazda are also the top two brands, ahead of Hyundai, Holden and Ford — the latter of which has turned things around this year with 13.7 per cent annual growth. Remarkably, Mercedes-Benz has cracked the top 10, in tenth spot.

One big-ticket fact is that market-wide YTD sales to the end of March in Australia (source: VFACTS) have the market on-track for an all-time record. The figures stand at 285,328 units, up 2.8 per cent on the same period last year.

Powering this most of all are NSW (96,988, up 8.3 per cent) and Victoria (76,924, up 1.9 per cent). Showing the resources boom is now at more of a gentle simmer is Western Australia, with 25,640 units YTD (down 4.2 per cent).

Passenger vehicles (means all sedans, hatches, coupes, convertibles and people-movers) are down 8 per cent, while SUVs led by the Mazda CX-5 and Hyundai Tucson are up 13.8 per cent.

Thus far, SUVs have 38 per cent market share, just shy of the 41.5 per cent share of passenger cars. Light commercial vehicles have cornered 18.1 per cent of the total market, driven by the HiLux, Ranger and Mitsubishi Triton.

The big growth segments are Medium SUVs (up 24.5 per cent and the second-most popular after Small Cars), People Movers (up 23.2 per cent) and Small SUVs (up 10.2 per cent).

The segments which have fallen out of favour YTD are Micro Cars (down 31.3 per cent), Light Vans (down 18.5 per cent), Large Cars (down 15 per cent) and Light Cars (down 13.9 per cent).

Of the 285,328 vehicles sold between January and March, 186,364 of them had petrol engines, meaning about two-thirds of all vehicle are petrol-powered.

Diesel sales totalled 95,820 — only 5303 of these were passenger cars — while hybrid cars totalled a measly 2591, less than 1 per cent of the market. LPG totalled 154. Without Tesla subscribing to VFACTS it’s hard to ascertain electric car figures.

Our main source of vehicle has been Japan (82,330, down 1.1 pr cent), ahead of Thailand (67,025, up 13.1 per cent), Korea (35,958, up 17.5 per cent), Germany (21,346, down 1.8 percent) and Australia (18,009, down 20.4 per cent).

The top passenger car brands were Toyota (18,747), Hyundai (16,044), Mazda (15,705), Holden (12,062), Volkswagen (9274), Kia (5977), Mercedes-Benz (5310), Ford (5173), Honda (4493) and BMW (3800).

The top SUV brands were Toyota (14,512), Mazda (11,184), Nissan (10,691), Mitsubishi (9508), Subaru (8393), Hyundai (6973), Honda (5105), Holden (4959), Ford (4458) and Land Rover (4076).

The fastest-growing (in percentage terms) brands with sales of at least 100 cars are: LDV (up 261.5 per cent), Jaguar (up 173.1 per cent), Porsche (up 54.9 per cent), Volvo Car (up 53.7 per cent), Land Rover (up 49.8 per cent), Infiniti (up 35.5 per cent), Isuzu Ute (up 30.2 per cent) and BMW (up 27.7 per cent).

In volume terms, the brands that have added the most sales over Q1, 2016 compared to Q1, 2015 are: Ford (up an extra 2239 units), Mazda (up 2169), Kia (up 1674), BMW (up 1624), Mitsubishi (up 1578), Land Rover (up 1361), Isuzu Ute (up 1303) and Mercedes-Benz (up 1243).

The biggest losers in volume terms are: Jeep (down 3796 units), Toyota (down 2493) and Holden (down 2262). The biggest losers (among brands with decent volume) on percentage terms are Dodge (down 53.4 per cent), Fiat (down 52.3 per cent), Jeep (down 50.1 per cent), Alfa Romeo (down 47.9 per cent) and SsangYong (down 47.5 per cent).

A few other interesting facts and figures

Top 20 brands total Q1, 2016

  1. Toyota (46,493, down 5.1 per cent)
  2. Mazda (30,449, up 7.7 per cent)
  3. Hyundai (24,402 (up 3.3 per cent)
  4. Holden (22,519, down 9.1 per cent)
  5. Ford (18,641, up 13.7 per cent)
  6. Mitsubishi (18,207, up 9.5 per cent)
  7. Nissan (17,363, down 1.7 per cent)
  8. Volkswagen (14,579, down 1.6 per cent)
  9. Subaru (11,768, up 13.9 per cent)
  10. Mercedes-Benz (10,063, up 14.1 per cent)
  11. Honda (9598, down 0.5 per cent)
  12. Kia (9549, up 21.3 per cent)
  13. BMW (7478, up 27.7 per cent)
  14. Audi (6160, up 12.4 per cent)
  15. Isuzu Ute (5612, up 30.2 per cent)
  16. Suzuki (5142, up 1.4 per cent)
  17. Land Rover (4093, up 49.8 per cent)
  18. Jeep (3787, down 50.1 per cent)
  19. Renault (2386, up 5.9 per cent)
  20. Lexus (2186, up 20.6 per cent)

Top 10 models Q1, 2016

Top-sellers in each segment

MORE: Detailed monthly breakdowns from January 2016, February 2016 and March 2016
MORE: All other VFACTS stories 

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