Economic downturn starting to bite

More new cars were sold during April of 2008 than any previous April on record. That's the good news. According to VFACTS, buyers purchased 84,061 units during the month, an improvement of 11.2 per cent on the figure for April last year.

Unfortunately -- and this is the bad news -- April last year included the Easter long weekend, meaning three fewer selling days. Comparing the two months, the daily sales rate actually fell by 74.6 cars for last month. Speculating, it's not too hard to imagine that housing interest rates and fuel prices are starting to affect spending.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries also reckon that seasonally adjusted, the total sales for April were 7.6 per cent lower than for the month before, March 2008. So at least two indicators are pointing to a lower annual total for 2008, after the record number from 2007.

During April, all classes (passenger, SUV and light commercial) saw improved sales year-on-year -- versus April '07, but with just a 5.6 per cent increase, passenger vehicles were a long way behind SUVs (16.7 per cent) and light commercials (22.6 per cent).

With impressive sales results for the previous three months, the market is still running ahead of last year's, on a year-to-date basis. The 2008 total to date is 347,514 -- a 5.1 per cent or 16,832-unit lead on the figure for January to April 2007.

For the month, small cars (3603-unit/24.0 per cent improvement, YOY) contrast drastically with large cars (-1861-unit/17.6 per cent reduction, YOY). Light (5.3 per cent gain) and medium cars (11.4 per cent gain) also outshone large and upper large cars. People movers also slid backwards by 6.4 per cent. In SUVs, only compact SUVs didn't sell better in April than in April 2007. The sales decline for compact SUVs was -1.7 per cent, but all other SUV segments showed YOY gains. All light commercial vehicle segments other than 2.5-tonne trucks improved on April 2007 sales.

Top five selling vehicles for the month:

Toyota HiLux: 3814
Toyota Corolla: 3722
Holden Commodore: 3324
Mazda3: 2811
Toyota Camry: 2137

Year-on-year performance by marque:

Toyota ? 20,838
Holden ? 10,187
Ford ? 8,246
Mazda ? 6749
Mitsubishi ? 5007
Nissan ? 4935
Honda ? 4289
Hyundai ? 3683
Subaru ? 3158
Volkswagen ? 2440
Kia ? 1637
Suzuki ? 1626
Mercedes-Benz ? 1553
BMW ? 1347
Lexus ? 853
Audi ? 770
Peugeot ? 551
Volvo Car ? 401
Jeep ? 397
Land Rover ? 350
Citroen ? 255
Renault ? 230
Chrysler ? 223
Fiat ? 206
Dodge ? 206
Proton ? 187
MINI ? 172
Ssangyong ? 155
Porsche ? 129
Hummer ? 129
Saab ? 126
Alfa Romeo ? 101
Skoda ? 74
Jaguar ? 51
Smart ? 29
Maserati ? 24
Ferrari ? 15
Bentley ? 12
Aston Martin ? 11
Lotus ? 7
Lamborghini ? 4

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