Fleet buyers on holidays

January is the month when fleet buyers pack up the family and head off to the beach or a houseboat on a river.

Few symptoms of that are more obvious than VFACTS figures for the month. Even Toyota, last year's top selling car company in Australia, is not immune -- although it still managed to top not only the small car segment, but the entire market, with the Corolla range.

Corolla, with 3843 units sold during the month, outsold Holden's Commodore on 3210. Compared with January '07, the Corolla sold nearly 400 units more and the Commodore sold over 250 units less.

The Commodore, hit with the double-whammy of declining large car sales and the fleet buyers off sunning themselves, barely stayed ahead of the Mazda3, which sold 2915 units during January.

Far from approaching Toyota's Yaris, which sold 2443 units for the month, Hyundai's Getz sold just 971 units during January, overtaken by the Mazda2 (1442 units) and Honda Jazz (1395). In addition, the Getz barely stayed ahead of the Suzuki Swift (937) and the Holden Barina (915). This casts the Getz in the role of a fleet buyers' favoured light car.

Sales of the Toyota Camry in the medium car segment held roughly steady on 1385 units (1343 for January '07). That placed it barely 300 units ahead of the Mazda6, which shouldn't be selling as well as it is, by rights, since it's due to be replaced shortly.

In the large car segment, both Ford and Holden had tales of woe, although Holden's was not the tear-jerker that Ford's was. At 1252 units sold for the month, the Falcon was out-sold by the Aurion (1266). In our view, it takes Orion to catch Aurion...

The Carsales Network will cover the latest VFACTS sales figures in greater detail during coming days.