Australian new car sales set to continue record pace

Fancy yourself a new set of wheels?

Research from Roy Morgan reveals nearly 2.5 million Australians are thinking the same thing, with a monthly study indicating that’s the number  of Aussies who intend to purchase a new car in the next four years.

The latest survey of 50,000 consumers suggests our ‘new car purchase intention’ remains at near-record levels, following a 15-year peak in February.

“In addition to four year car buying intention being close to a record with 2.457 million, short term new car buying intention has also increased,” researchers said. “The number of Australians intending to purchase a new car in the next 12 months has now increased by 9.2 per cent over the last quarter to 679,000.”

Roy Morgan Research communications director Norman Morris cited increasing consumer confidence as the main factor behind the spike. The same reasoning could also be applied to current new car sales, which maintained record pace in August, according to official VFACTs data.

“Over the last three months, there has been considerable optimism in the new car market as shown by the steady increase in buying intentions for the next four years and strong confidence among new car buyers,” Morris said.

“Although VFACTs sales to August are only up marginally on last year, strong intention levels indicate that it is likely to be another good year for the industry.”

According to the survey, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Kia, Volkswagen and Skoda stood to gain from the market’s newfound optimism.

“The increase in new vehicle intentions over the last three months has been driven primarily from the continued market trend to SUV’s, with an increase of 84,000, coming mainly from medium SUV’s,” Morris said.

“Light commercials were the other big mover, increasing by 41,000, while passenger vehicle intentions remained unchanged.

“Not all brands shared in this rising market, with the major growth coming from Toyota up 45,000, Mitsubishi up 44,000, Kia up 35,000, VW up 22,000 and Skoda up 18,000.”