VFACTS August: Market bombs to new low

UPDATE 04/09/2019 NOON: Official VFACTS sales figures for August have been released by the FCAI, revealing a slightly lower but still record month-on-month decline of 10.1 per cent, with 85,633 vehicles registered.

All segments of the market were down, including SUVs (-5.4% with 39,040 sales), passenger vehicles (-16.7% with 25,783 sales) and light commercials (-8.6% with 17,513 sales).

Toyota remained the top selling marque for the month with 16,700 sales for 19.5 per cent market share, followed by Hyundai (7320, 8.5%), Mazda (7291, 8.5%), Mitsubishi (6242, 7.3%) and Ford (4916, 5.7%).

The top selling vehicle for the month was again the Toyota Hi-Lux (3674), followed by the Ford Ranger (3181), Toyota Corolla (2863), Hyundai i30 (2813) and Toyota RAV4 (2006).

New vehicle sales plummeted by more than 12.5 per cent in August, marking a new low for the Australian auto industry this year.

According to preliminary industry figures exchanged between car-makers ahead of the official monthly VFACTS report this Wednesday (September 4), less than 82,000 new vehicles were registered last month – almost 10,000 fewer than in August 2018.

Year-to-date (YTD) sales figures are not yet available, but the record monthly sales decline eclipses the 9.6 per cent plunge in June, when YTD sales were off 8.4 per cent, before a 2.8 per cent decrease in July reduced that deficit to 7.7 per cent YTD last month.

Once again a tighter financial climate and negative consumer sentiment resulted in reduced sales of passenger cars (down almost 16%) as well as SUVs (down nearly 8%) and light commercial vehicles (down more than 10%).

And once again Kia bucked the trend by increasing its sales (albeit by less than 1%), although this month Nissan joined it as the only other top 10 brand to lift sales, by a little over two per cent.

Even market leader Toyota suffered a sales slide of more than 11 per cent in August, although it still commanded a 20.5 per cent market share with about 16,700 sales. HiLux 4x4 sales were down more than 10 per cent to about 2870, while Corolla sales were off more than five per cent to 2860.

But of the mainstream brands it was Mazda with the biggest crash (down 32% with less than 7300 sales), following 30 per cent sales slumps for the pricier new Mazda3 (about 2000 sales) and the CX-5 mid-size SUV (1800).

In fact, Hyundai (down 8.5%) beat Mazda into second place last month, with a handful more sales and a single market share point (9.0%).

Holden (-18%), Ford (-17.5%) and Mitsubishi (-13%) were other big losers in August, following sales slumps of all models except Trailblazer, Transit and ASX, Eclipse Cross and Triton 4x2 respectively.

Nevertheless Mitsubishi outpaced Ford to place fourth place for the month, ahead of an advancing Kia and Nissan (thanks to strong Cerato and QASHQAI sales), with Volkswagen, Holden and Subaru rounding out the top 10.

Once again Toyota’s HiLux was Australia’s most popular new vehicle ahead of the Ford Ranger, although the latter was the top-selling 4x4 ute, then three small cars (Toyota Corolla, Hyundai i30 and Mazda3) and three SUVs – Mazda CX-3, Mitsubishi ASX and Nissan X-TRAIL.

August top 10 models:
Toyota HiLux – 3670
Ford Ranger – 3180
Toyota Corolla – 2860
Hyundai i30 – 2810
Toyota RAV4 – 2005
Mazda3 – 2000
Mazda CX-5 – 1800
Mitsubishi ASX – 1750
Nissan X-TRAIL – 1740
Mitsubishi Triton – 1720