Holden Commodore remains on top

Soaring fuel prices, intense competition from Toyota and the new Ford Falcon were not enough to stop the Holden Commodore claiming top honours in the 2008 sales race.

Holden sold 51,093 Commodore sedans, Utes and Sportswagons last year to record its 13th consecutive year as the top selling model in the country.

Although that figure was 6214 units down on 2007 and overall Holden sold 130,338 cars in 2008 -- a drop of 16,342 over 2007 -- Holden Executive Director Sales, Marketing and Aftersales, Alan Batey believes the future looks bright for the company after a strong end to '08.

"The exchange environment in 2008 remained quite difficult for us because obviously the situation with the Yen," Batey says.

"Now that has changed dramatically, as you know, in the back end of 2008 and obviously it's early days but it's following into 2009. So we think our relative position in the market from a pricing perspective is going to be better going forward than it has been in 2008.

"I would say overall 2008 was a challenging year for us but there has been some real highlights. Obviously the success of VE across the board -- VE, Ute, Sportswagon -- has been phenomenal and that has been the foundation of our plan for some time.

"Captiva also has continued to do well. We're now getting within a hundred units of Territory month-in month-out, so that's also a good achievement. And then our four-cylinder range, we think going forward, that we're going to be more competitive, and the SX is going to help us be more competitive."

Batey says sales in December were better than expected, thanks to the drop in fuel prices and a number of special offers by Holden to clear its stock.

"We took a position at the end of October we were really going to attack the market place and we've reaped the benefits," he says. "It's been a fantastic environment to get great value across all marques, and Holden has had some great offers available."

Because of that Batey says making predictions for 2009 would be difficult until later next month but he was confident that Holden would remain strong.

"Talking to our dealers over the last week or so and they are reporting activity is quite good right now," he says. "We'll know more coming out of February; you know not a lot of fleet business is done in January [and] it's a very small market, so we'll have a better view at the end of February. But I would say at the moment -- from a Holden perspective -- dealers are reporting good interest and good traffic."

Batey says sales of the Sportswagon were especially strong with 8200 sold in the five months it was on sale. That number meant it was more popular than any SUV model since July and bodes well for the Commodore as the new year begins.

The strong December sales means Holden stocks are "tidy" according to Batey and that will mean an end to the special offers that cleared the '08 models. But he believes importers are still over-stocked and that will mean good news for new car buyers.

"It has been a buyer's market and I think that will continue in the first quarter," he says.

"No question Commodore will continue to be very, very attractive in the marketplace."

Looking ahead to 2009 Batey was pleased with the brand's new advertising campaign that was launched last year and says that will continue for the foreseeable future. But with the economy still facing an uncertain future -- especially overseas -- and fuel prices threatening to rise again Batey admits the objective for 2009 is to maintain the current positive position.

"Our aim is to keep the momentum," he says. "It has been a very difficult marketplace and there are signals out there that the environment should be good for Holden particularly with the Yen verse Aussie dollar exchange rate. We've had it really tough when that things been at 100, where it is today definitely provides us with good opportunities. We'll do everything we can to capitalise on those opportunities."

As both Holden and Ford lost sales last year Toyota bucked the trend and actually sold an extra 2336 cars. Asked if Holden could knock the Japanese giant off its perch in 2009 Batey admitted it wouldn't happen but believes Holden can make up ground with its compact and medium sized models.

"Not in 2009, that's for sure! It's interesting; Toyota continues to be a formidable competitor," he says.

"They continue to dominate in four-cylinders; have had less success in large cars. So we've really not come face-to-face in 2008, apart from the area of pick-ups where we've done particularly well with Ute... but they've done particularly well with HiLux. I would say going forward both of us have opportunities but from the Holden side our opportunity is to improve in four-cylinders because we're dominating large cars with the VE derivatives."