Toyota: 2022 could have been a record year

Without supply issues, Toyota Australia is confident it would have set a new vehicle sales record in 2022.

However, it is already predicting based on early research that 2023 sales will decline.

In 2022, Toyota reported selling 231,050 vehicles, its third-best result ever and the best in 14 years.

The stellar sales came despite widely reported and lengthy wait lists for popular models including the Toyota RAV4 medium SUV and the LandCruiser LC70 and LC300 large SUVs.

“There’s no doubt our order bank is very healthy and there is no doubt if we could have supplied every vehicle based on the demand we had over the last 12 months it would have been an all-time record,” Toyota Australia sales and marketing vice-president Sean Hanley told carsales today.

“But what would have been would have been maybe, it doesn’t really matter.”

Toyota’s 2022 result delivered it the number-one sales slot in the Aussie market for the 26th time overall and the 20th year in a row. Its sales were up 3.3 per cent compared to 2021.

It was also the 18th time in the past 19 years Toyota Australia’s annual sales had topped 200,000. It missed out in 2011 because of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

The Toyota HiLux ute was the top-selling model in the market for the seventh consecutive year and also led both the 4x2 and 4x4 commercial vehicle segments.

Six other Toyota models topped their sales segments – Corolla, RAV4, Prado, LandCruiser 300, HiAce and HiAce van.

“We’re very happy with the 231,000 sales that we did,” said Hanley.

“We are humbled by it, we are not complacent. We understand that that has come with its challenges over the last 12 months in terms of supply and customer wait lists.”

Hanley said early data coming back for 2023 suggested a sales slowdown, although he suggested it would not be as severe in Australia as other parts of the world.

Global economic headwinds include the Ukraine war, recession fears in the US and UK and China’s worsening COVID situation.

In Australia negative factors include inflation, lowering house prices and rising car prices.

“I expect we will still deliver more than 200,000 vehicles to our customers in 2023,” Hanley predicted.

“I think it’s fair to say that interest rates and cost of living is getting some traction in the market. I think the final result will depend on those factors, plus of course the supply issues.

“I don’t think we are in for a dramatic drop but I think we are acutely aware it’s not going to be strong in 2023 in terms of our enquiry levels as it was in 2022.”

Hanley described the correction as a normalisation of demand.

“We are already seeing through our own research that enquiry levels on our vehicles is normalising,” he said.

“The most recent research we did just before Christmas, our enquiry levels are now officially back to pre-COVID levels.

“Having said that, for Toyota that is still quite healthy.

“We are going from an incredible demand high – which I have never seen in my 34 years [in the Australian auto industry] – and now we are starting to see enquiries head back to pre-COVID levels.

“For Toyota, that is still incredibly high.”