VFACTS: March sales soft
March new car registrations will come in just down on 2015, but market remains up year to dateVFACTs new vehicle registration data set to be released tomorrow (April 5) will show March stats are down – the first month in 2016 to be so, compared to the corresponding period in 2015.
Preliminary VFACTs figures obtained by motoring.com.au show March 2016 new vehicle registrations totalled 104,512, marginally down (0.5%) on the same month in 2015 (105,054). The year-to-date total of 285,328, however, remains 2.8% up on the first quarter of 2015.
On a state basis, NSW leads the Australian marketplace -- over 2100 units up on the same month in 2015. All the other states dragged the chain and were down on the same month in 2015. ACT was the only other jurisdiction that posted a positive registration total in March compared to 2015.
Passenger car registrations were down 4.1% in the month but both SUVs and LCVs were up –- again. Year to date Australians have registered an extra 13,148 SUVs and 4841 light commercial vehicles. ‘Passenger cars’ are, correspondingly, down 10,335 units for the first quarter.
In terms of marque performance, standouts include: Land Rover up 49.8%; BMW up 27.7%; Ford up 13.7% and Audi up 12.4%. Perennial favourites in the Australian luxury sector, Mercedes-Benz is up 14.1% and with over 10,000 registrations in Q1 of 2016 has found more new owners than brands such as Honda, Peugeot, Renault and Jeep.
Infiniti logged its first month of more than 100 registrations. It has a long road ahead of it.
With over 10,200 registrations in the first three months of 2016, Mazda’s 3 is Australia’s best seller.
For the month of March he top selling vehicle was the Hyundai i30 with 4198 sales, followed by the Toyota Hilux (3897), the Toyota Corolla (3612) the Mazda 3 (3145) and the Ford Ranger (2960).
In the same period Aussies have registered around six Commodores for every single Falcon so far in 2016. That said, the Blue Oval’s total registrations of 18,641, while behind Holden (22,519), are up 13.7% YOY compared to Team Red’s 9.1% slump.
Toyota retains its spot at the head of the market. Although down on the same period in 2015, its Q1 registrations approached 47,000 units, more than 50% up on number two, Mazda at around 30,500 units year to date.
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