April VFACTS: Sales slide continues

April was yet another poor month for the automotive industry, according to industry statistician VFACTS.

Sales figures released today reveal that last month's results (75,550 vehicles sold) marked a year-on-year slump of 8.9 per cent. Total sales of 344,088 units for the first four months of this year represent an 8.1 per cent decline when measured against the 2018 sales for January through to April inclusive.

"The results for April are in line with trends for year-to-date 2019. We have seen a decrease of around eight per cent across the first four months of the year," said Tony Weber, chief executive of the FCAI (Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries).

"This decrease is the result of a number of factors in the Australian market, including the downturn in the housing market, the tightening of lending practices, environmental factors such as drought and flood, and of course the imminent Federal Government election.

"With all these elements currently present in the market, it is no surprise that Australian consumers are conservative in their approach to major purchases at the moment."

After early signs of growth, sales in 2018 began to plateau in July and lost altitude for each subsequent month. 2019 is following that trend, with sales likely to fall even lower, year on year, unless this month's federal election has an unexpected impact on buyer sentiment.

By class, even SUVs have seen a downturn in sales performance, for the month (33,190 – down 2969) and the year to date (152,08 – down 7291).

For passenger cars, the prevailing economic conditions have compounded the downward trend in popularity. Year to date, passenger cars have lost 21,987 sales and for the month the class has dropped back 3717 sales.

Light commercial vehicles have not been hit as hard, but year to date (72,729 – down 738 sales) and monthly results (15,601 – down 486) are further evidence of a market going through some challenges at the present time. Interestingly, the only sector of the market that's ahead of last year's numbers is that of light commercial vehicles sold to private buyers.

Although the total numbers clearly favour diesels over electric vehicles, year to date figures show the EVs are growing in number, whereas diesels are not selling at anything like the same rate as they were in 2018. That could be a sign of things to come. Hybrids have also picked up this year, but conventional petrol-engined vehicles are over 24,000 sales behind the number for 2018.

Incredibly, Holden sold seven locally-built cars last month – presumably the last of the VF II Commodores that ended production in October of 2017.

Few volume-selling importers in the mainstream are enjoying positive growth, and Mitsubishi is essentially the only brand to sell over 1000 units more, year to date. With over 30,000 vehicles sold so far in 2019, Mitsubishi's result has risen by 3293.

The top-selling cars in April were:
Toyota HiLux (3621),
Ford Ranger (3011),
Toyota Corolla (2429),
Mazda3 (2195),
Toyota LandCruiser (2034),
Hyundai i30 (1910),
Mazda CX-5 (1827),
Kia Cerato (1650),
Toyota Prado (1473),
Hyundai Tucson (1355).

The top 10 brands for the year to date are:
Toyota (64,753),
Mazda (35,987),
Mitsubishi (30,016),
Hyundai (26,834),
Ford (21,062),
Kia (19,331),
Volkswagen (15,871),
Nissan (15,866),
Holden (15,308),
Honda (14,872)

Of those brands, just Mitsubishi and Kia have sold more cars in 2019 than for the first four months of 2018.