October VFACTS: Market recovering strongly

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) has taken heart from October’s sales of new cars, with VFACTS figures released today revealing that sales around the nation totalled 81,220 units – only 1236 fewer than the corresponding month last year.

That amounts to a 1.5 per cent downturn, measured against sales of 82,456 in October 2019, which the FCAI describes as an "encouraging" result for the industry, given that Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne, was in Stage 4 lockdown during the month.

“After a very challenging year, we are seeing ‘green shoots’ in the Australian new vehicle market. Every state and territory except Victoria and Tasmania have seen significant growth and, given the circumstances, Victoria’s result is seen as encouraging,” said Tony Weber, the FCAI’s chief executive.

The October sales result has lifted year-to-date sales in 2020 to 726,111 vehicles.

That’s nearly 168,000 fewer than for the same 10-month period in 2019, marking an 18.8 per cent downturn.

And although the sales result last month was better than expected, it continued the trend of declining sales, month-on-month.

“These results mark the 31st month of decreasing sales for the industry, which has experienced a series of financial and market challenges during the period,” said Weber.

“However, the green shoots that we are seeing in October give us great hope that we may begin to see further recovery during the coming months.

“Nationally, the state of industry operations is returning to normal as COVID-19 restrictions ease. Additionally, government initiatives such as a constructive budget that included the instant asset write-off, along with more accessible finance for consumers, is also acting as a welcome stimulus for the industry.

“Electrified vehicles also experienced a surge during the month, more than doubling in their total sales compared to October 2019. This shows that Australian consumers are willing to explore new drivetrain technologies.”

Broken down, the October 2020 results reveal that passenger cars continue to sell in ever smaller numbers – down 24.5 per cent, year-on-year – while SUVs sold in higher numbers last month than they did in October 2019 – a jump of 6.7 per cent for a figure of 41,220 (or about 50.8 per cent of the entire market for the month).

That surge from SUVs during the month was mostly driven by private buyers.

Sales of light commercial vehicles also rose last month, up by 11.6 per cent for 19,152 sales.

In a challenging year to say the least, a number of brands recorded positive results for the month as buyer confidence returned and new models entered the marketplace.

These included market leader Toyota, which enjoyed a strong sales increase of 14.8 per cent last month (with 19,505 units), and second-placed Mazda, which had sales growth of 17.1 per cent cent (with 7457 units).

Others in positive territory included LDV (1117, +123%), thanks in part to its all-new LDV Deliver 9 van, while fellow Chinese brands MG (1680, +119.6%) and Haval (291, +47.7%) also bucked the trend.

The all-new Isuzu D-MAX pushed Isuzu Ute Australia's sales for the month up to 2252 units, a rise of 15.7 per cent, and Ford found 17.4 per cent growth to 5744 units on the back of its commercial vehicles including the updated Ford Ranger ute and Transit van.

Kia was back in form, posting 5304 sales (+4.8%), Jeep's turnaround continued with 553 new registrations (+40.7%) and Skoda was strong with 642 runs on the scoreboard (+14.8%).

A selection of premium brands also performed well, including Porsche (341, +32.7%), BMW (1843, +3.2%) and Audi (1481, +18.9%).

Indeed, Audi is one of the few brands with a high profile to post more sales for the month and for the year to date (+1.2%) than it did last year.

The big mover is MG, now up 67.8 per cent for the year to date with 11,308 sales recorded.

In marked contrast, and unsurprisingly, Holden sales last month were just 165 units, nearly 95 per cent lower than for October 2019.

Holden’s sales throughout 2020 are less than half the tally for the first 10 months of 2019.

The only models to sell in double digits last month were the Commodore and the Colorado. It’s a sorry outcome for the once proud brand, which during the same month chalked up its last win as a commercially operating brand at the home of touring car racing in Australia, Bathurst.

The FCAI hasn’t offered a sales forecast for 2020 in total, but even if the last two months of this year improve substantially on the final two months of 2019, it’s unlikely that the market will reach one million sales this year.

Top 10 brands for the year to date:
Toyota – 158,127
Mazda – 68,031
Hyundai – 51,170
Ford – 46,682
Mitsubishi – 46,467
Kia – 46,000
Volkswagen – 32,696
Nissan – 30,106
Subaru – 24,896
Honda – 23,910

The top 10 brands have all lost sales for the year to date, but Ford’s sales loss in October was not as much as Mitsubishi’s, allowing Ford to slip back into the number four position for the year, relegating Mitsubishi to fifth place.

Top 10 vehicles for the month:
Toyota HiLux – 4444
Ford Ranger – 4217
Toyota RAV4 – 4084
Toyota LandCruiser – 2429
Toyota LandCruiser Prado – 2207
Toyota Corolla – 1943
Isuzu D-MAX – 1932
Mazda CX-5 – 1912
Hyundai Tucson – 1678
Kia Cerato – 1619