VFACTS for July: Election jitters?

New-car sales for last month rose against July last year, but actually fell slightly when compared with July 2008.

The raw figures supplied by industry statistician, VFACTS, show that 7043 more vehicles were sold last month than in July 2009, when the country was still partly in the grip of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Despite the positive outlook from the FCAI (the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries), the total figure of 82,376 for July 2010 is good -- but not great. The sales figure represents a 9.3 per cent gain on the market's performance during July 2009, meaning it's lagging some way behind the growth of 15.6 per cent for the year to date.

Furthermore, when compared with July 2008 -- one of the final months of solid sales before the GFC arrived -- last month's figure amounts to a 1600-unit shortfall. In fairness though, the June 2010 figure was 2181 units better than the June 2008 figure, so there's a little matter of swings and roundabouts at play.

Still, with the federal election announced during July, it's tempting to suggest that buyers are holding back on their new-car purchases until September, by which time it will be clear who will be running the country and what, if any, incentives will be on offer to stimulate the automotive industry further.

According to the FCAI, the July figures show the industry's increasing engagement with private buyers.

"This is a very solid result for July with the start of the new financial year usually resulting in slower sales," Chief Executive for the FCAI, Andrew McKellar was quoted as saying in a press release today.

"These figures provide further evidence that sales to private customers continue to increase strongly -- recording a 20 per cent rise compared to this time last year."

"There is a proliferation of new models on the market at the moment that buyers are finding attractive, particularly in the SUV range."

For 2010 so far, 613,544 vehicles have been sold, providing the market with a boost of 82,988 vehicles over the same period in 2009. Much of that upswing can be traced back to the government's business tax breaks, but it's also about consumer confidence and the news earlier this year that Australia had avoided technical recession.

Among those announcing wins for the month were Holden, Subaru, Suzuki and Toyota. Holden's Commodore remains the top-selling car in the country, both Subaru and Suzuki posted record July sales figures and Toyota, sitting on 17,250 sales for the month and 124,720 for the year to date, is 3.5 per cent ahead for July and 12.5 per cent up for the year.

And with that year-to-date sales figure, Toyota is the market-leading brand -- 45,415 sales clear of second-place getter, Holden. For its part, Holden has sold 79,305 units for the first seven months of the year, followed by Ford on 56,571, Mazda on 50,245, Hyundai on 48,902, Nissan 37,476, Mitsubishi 37,401, Honda 25,355, Subaru 24,362 and Volkswagen 22,228.

All ten companies (including late starter Honda) have seen overall growth this year. Mazda has pulled further ahead of Hyundai once more, Mitsubishi is 75 sales behind Nissan and if Subaru can maintain its rocketing sales momentum, it may overhaul Honda before the end of the year.

The top ten cars for the month were: Holden Commodore (3783), Mazda3 (3464), Toyota Corolla (3375), Toyota Hilux (3106), Ford Falcon (2342), Hyundai i30 (2333), Holden Cruze (2179), Mitsubishi Lancer (2177), Toyota Camry (2095) and Toyota Yaris (1697).

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