VFACTS: June 2018 new vehicle sales
Biggest month of the year sees few surprises, but more than 600,000 new vehicles sold over the first half puts market on record pace.
Australia’s new vehicle sales in June this year couldn’t quite match the record tally over the same month in 2017, but 130,300 units over 26 selling days is nothing to sneeze at.
The June haul takes annual sales at the half-year mark of 2018 to 605,522 units, up 1 per cent on last year’s high-water mark. Low interest rates, LCV tax breaks and hyper-charged competition driving down prices will do that…
SUV sales rose 9.3 per cent, offsetting a double-digit decline (17.9 per cent) in passenger vehicles, while light commercial vehicles (steady) managed a higher-than-usual 22 per cent market share thanks to the usual end of financial year (EOFY) incentives.
Remarkably enough, the top three selling vehicles were utes: the Toyota HiLux, Ford Ranger and Mitsubishi Triton.
Brands
Looks like 14 of the top 20 brands sold fewer vehicles in June this year than the same month in 2017, with the exceptions being fourth-placed Mitsubishi, seventh/eighth Kia and Honda, then BMW, Land Rover and Renault.
The top 20 table looks like this:
Brand
| Sales
| % Change
| Market share
|
| 23,171
| down 5.6
| 17.8
|
| 12,469
| down 0.3
| 9.6
|
| 10,436
| down 14.8
| 8.0
|
| 10,232
| up 10.4
| 7.9
|
| 7492
| down 15.4
| 5.7
|
| 7385
| down 20.4
| 5.7
|
| 7067
| up 4.9
| 5.4
|
| 7013
| up 29.6
| 5.4
|
| 6604
| down 1.3
| 5.1
|
| 6334
| down 1.8
| 4.9
|
| 4920
| down 5.4
| 3.8
|
| 4613
| down 5.0
| 3.5
|
| 3279
| down 8.0
| 2.5
|
| 2636
| up 0.2
| 2.0
|
| 2028
| down 5.8
| 1.6
|
| 2024
| down 2.6
| 1.6
|
| 1297
| up 22.0
| 1.0
|
| 1231
| up 2.1
| 0.9
|
| 961
| down 11.0
| 0.7
|
| 884
| down 30.0
| 0.7
|
Toyota’s drop away was entirely attributable to a big fall in Camry sales. Last June it was doing huge deals to move Australian-made stock, whereas it took a more profit-minded approach with the import this year and saw sales more than half.
Mazda tracked about steady in second, while Hyundai suffered a similar issue to Toyota with its Tucson, yielding a still-impressive 2000 sales last month that nevertheless paled in comparison to June 2017’s haul. This was somewhat offset by the new Kona.
Mitsubishi just keeps on trucking with its no-nonsense range, the Eclipse Cross and Triton 4x4 being its MVPs in terms of growth. Ford and Holden both fell away by double digits: the former saw dips in its big-volume Mustang and Ranger 4x4, while the latter saw imported Commodore sales drop to half of the VFII’s last June, ditto the Astra (down 46 per cent).
The market’s fastest-grower this year is Honda, which was up almost 30 per cent in June thanks in large part to the very well-received new CR-V, now one of the bonafide segment-toppers. Nissan tracked almost steady, with a booming Qashqai offsetting the battling Navara.
Volkswagen dipped but saw strong months from its core Golf, Tiguan and Amarok, with the new supply-restricted Polo letting the team down. 11th-placed Subaru is gearing up to launch a new-generation Forester, so that model’s dip is to be expected.
Mercedes-Benz’s reduced A-Class and C-Class volumes were somewhat offset by strong GLA and GLC hauls, while the X-Class is off to a modest start – only 226 sales last month. Isuzu Ute dipped slightly but sold more than 2000 D-Max utes and more than 1000 MU-X 4x4 SUVs, ahead of any other ute-based rival by miles.
Luxury pair BMW and Audi have cauterised last year’s drops, and no surprise that some of their SUVs are doing well. We’re talking about the likes of the Q5 from the former, and the X2 and X3 from the latter - though the growth from these crossovers isn’t unanimous.
Suzuki sat in 16th thanks to a strong month from the unpretentious little Swift (more than 1000 sales), while Land Rover is back in the black thanks to the new Discovery, and swish Range Rover Velar. Renault sat in 18th thanks to the Koleos, which nearly outsold the Ford Escape in a battle of the battlers, while Lexus and Jeep made up the top 20.
Beyond this, smaller-scale brands that grew include (alphabetically): Citroen (86, up 68.6 per cent), Great Wall (121, up 157.4 per cent), Infiniti (112, up 49.3 per cent), Jaguar (361, up 39.9 per cent), LDV (616, up 102.6 per cent), MG (330, up six-fold), Mini (466, up 15.6 per cent), Peugeot (359, up 108.7 per cent), Skoda (642, up 8.1 per cent) and Volvo Car (643, up 14.4 per cent).
Battlers beyond the top 20 included Fiat (222, down 35.5 per cent), Haval (45, down 43.8 per cent) and Porsche (395, down 22.2 per cent).
Models
The top three were all utes, in order being the Toyota HiLux, Ford Ranger (#1 in the coveted 4x4 segment) and Mitsubishi Triton. Amazing.
The next three were small cars, the Toyota Corolla, Hyundai i30 (would have been #1 in segment if we added Elantra) and Mazda 3. Rounding out the top 10 were the Mazda CX-5 and Toyota RAV medium SUVs, the Kia Cerato small car and Holden Colorado ute.
Positions 11-20 were occupied by the Volkswagen Golf, Honda CR-V, Isuzu D-Max, Nissan Qashqai, Nissan X-Trail, Mitsubishi ASX, Hyundai Tucson, Mitsubishi Outlander, Mazda CX-3 and Honda HR-V.
The overall model mix in the top 20 were: 5 x utes, 5 x small cars, 6 x medium SUVs and 4 x small SUVs.
Model
| Sales
| Vehicle type
|
| 5787
| Ute
|
| 4768
| Ute
|
| 3919
| Ute
|
| 3780
| Small Car
|
| 3547
| Small Car
|
| 3327
| Small Car
|
| 3136
| Medium SUV
|
| 2690
| Medium SUV
|
| 2485
| Small Car
|
| 2472
| Ute
|
| 2317
| Small Car
|
| 2232
| Medium SUV
|
| 2223
| Ute
|
| 2198
| Small SUV
|
| 2151
| Medium SUV
|
| 2053
| Small SUV
|
| 2000
| Medium SUV
|
| 1881
| Medium SUV
|
| 1869
| Small SUV
|
| 1760
| Small SUV
|
Segment | First | Second | Third |
Micro Cars | Kia Picanto - 812 | Holden Spark - 82 | Mitsubishi Mirage - 82 |
Light Cars | Hyundai Accent - 1522 | Mazda 2 - 1149 | Toyota Yaris - 1056 |
Small Cars < $40k | Toyota Corolla - 3780 | Hyundai i30 - 3547 | Mazda 3 - 3327 |
Small Cars > $40k | Audi A3 - 445 | BMW 1 Series - 256 | MB A-Class - 252 |
Medium Cars < $60k | Toyota Camry - 1380 | Mazda 6 - 405 | Volkswagen Passat - 214 |
Medium Cars > $60k | MB C-Class - 484 | MB CLA - 420 | BMW 3 Series - 351 |
Large Cars < $70k | Commodore - 1159 | Kia Stinger - 188 | Skoda Superb - 96 |
Large Cars > $70k | MB E-Class - 180 | BMW 5 Series - 86 | Audi A6 - 31 |
Upper Large Cars | MB S-Class - 37 | Chrysler 300 - 14 | BMW 7 Series - 14 |
People Movers | Kia Carnival - 659 | Honda Odyssey - 279 | VW Multivan - 122 |
Sports Cars < $80k | Ford Mustang - 635 | Toyota 86 - 111 | BMW 2 Series - 110 |
Sports Cars < $200k | MB C-Class - 260 | MB E-Class - 92 | Audi A5 - 63 |
Sports Cars > $200k | Porsche 911 - 46 | Ferrari range - 23 | Mercedes-AMG GT - 19 |
Small SUVs < $40k | Nissan Qashqai - 2198 | Mitsubishi ASX - 2053 | Mazda CX-3 -1869 |
Small SUVs > $40k | MB GLA - 486 | BMW X1 - 441 | Audi Q3 - 276 |
Medium SUVs < $60k | Mazda CX-5 - 3136 | Toyota RAV4 - 2690 | Honda CR-V - 2232 |
Medium SUVs > $60k | MB GLC/Coupe - 810 | BMW X3/X4 - 663 | Lexus NX - 458 |
Large SUVs < $70k | Toyota Kluger - 1757 | Toyota Prado - 1688 | Subaru Outback - 1152 |
Large SUVs > $70k | MB GLE/Coupe - 435 | BMW X5/X6 - 335 | Range Rover Sport - 268 |
Upper Large SUVs < $100k | Toyota LandCruiser 1359 | Nissan Patrol - 129 | |
Upper Large SUVs > $100k | MB GLS - 121 | Lexus LX - 38 | Range Rover - 31 |
Small Vans | VW Caddy - 241 | Renault Kangoo - 112 | Citroen Berlingo - 38 |
Medium Vans | Toyota HiAce - 696 | Hyundai iLoad - 450 | VW Transporter - 290 |
Large Vans | MB Sprinter - 349 | Renault Master - 164 | Fiat Ducato - 103 |
4x2 Utes | Toyota HiLux - 1755 | Isuzu D-Max - 607 | Ford Ranger - 532 |
4x4 Utes | Ford Ranger - 4236 | Toyota HiLux - 4032 | Mitsubishi Triton - 3614 |
Miscellaneous
Sales by State/Territory: NSW 42,361, Victoria 36,695, Queensland 28,272, WA, 10,080, SA 7662, Tasmania 2012, ACT 1932 and NT 1286.
Top five segment by percentage market share: Medium SUV 18.1, Small Car 17.2, 4x4 Utes 16.1, Small SUV 12.7 and Large SUV 11.0.
Sales by fuel type: 82,494 petrol, 46,335 diesel, 1344 hybrid, 127 PHEV/EV excluding Tesla (refuses to supply figures).
Top sources of imports: Japan 37,805, Thailand 36,205, Korea 19,743, Germany 11,027 and USA 5040. Australian-made vehicles: 277 - 253 from Holden (213 Commodore, 40 Utes) and 24 from Toyota.
Ute-based SUV sales race: Isuzu MU-X 1056, Mitsubishi Pajero Sport 645, Ford Everest 514, Toyota Fortuner 316 and Holden Trailblazer 294.