VFACTS for July: Post-election blues

The Australian new-car market is on track for a 1.2-million sales tally for 2016, but an element of uncertainty has crept into the forward projection, based on last month's figures.

According to VFACTS data released today, the market during July sold close to 1000 fewer cars than in July 2015 – 91,331 versus 92,308. The lower rate of sales for July in 2016 is not a particular cause for concern, given sales set a new record for the same month last year.

And in year-to-date terms, sales the market is well ahead at 689,471 – over 18,000 sales clear of the first seven months in 2015. July hints that growth may taper off in the latter half of this year however.

More significantly, perhaps, it suggests the car-buying public was waiting for the federal election to be resolved one way or the other before purchasing a new car. In this, if it's actually the case, there were echoes of the market's anxiety back in 2013, when the Labor government of the time promised to change the basis of calculation for the Fringe Benefits Tax.

With Labor an odds-on chance to win the election in 2016 – and no clear result for several days after the election – could the car-buying voters have been biding their time to see what the next term of government would bring?

All major passenger vehicle segments, other than Micro and Sports, sold in lower numbers last month than in July 2015. A breakdown by VFACTS clearly reveals that it was private buyers who had the strongest influence in the decline of passenger-car sales last month.

Business and Rental purchases were actually ahead, year on year. If the passenger-car sales slow-down in July was due to any concern about the colour of government for the next three years, that trepidation was felt almost entirely by private buyers. And interestingly too, private buyers also purchased fewer SUVs and light commercials (LCVs) during the month.

Passenger cars fell more than 3000 units behind the July 2015 sales figures, but most of that deficit was offset by stronger sales of SUVs and LCVs. That growth in the SUV and LCV classes came from Business and Rental buyers, as was the case with passenger cars.

A point to note: sales of imported vehicles remained very close to the record-breaking July 2015 figure. Only about 100 sales separated the two months, a year apart. But most of the difference between last month and July of 2015 came from buyers of locally-manufactured cars, as Ford winds down its operations in Geelong and Campbellfield. Holden's Commodore sales suffered too, as did Cruze. Only Toyota's combined Camry and Aurion sales moved slightly ahead of July 2015. From this, the sales decline in July meets at the intersection of private buyers and locally-manufactured passenger cars.

The surge in sales of Micro cars was more a blip, with the Holden Spark accounting for most of that handful of extra sales. Mitsubishi's Mirage and the Nissan Micra also sold stronger than in July 2015, but the overall gain was barely a hundred units – although in positive territory at least, unlike most other passenger-car segments.

The Sports car segment, in comparison, enjoyed healthy sales growth for the month. Driven primarily by Ford's Mustang (and the Mazda MX-5 to a lesser extent), the segment is over 3000 units ahead, year to date.

Toyota sold 17,465 vehicles in July, setting itself a new monthly record. Corolla and HiLux were the only two vehicles to sell more than 3000 units during the month, and Camry posted its best July result since 2005. The LandCruiser 200 Series, which has been in the market since 2007, also set a new record for July.

"A consistent approach to managing our business and focusing on our customers has enabled Toyota to achieve a healthy July-on-July sales increase on top of a robust market-leading result in June," said Tony Cramb, Toyota Australia's executive director sales and marketing.

"As a result, Toyota has stood out by selling almost 40,000 vehicles over the past two months while also achieving an appreciable gain in market share for July," he said.

Top selling brands for the year to date are: Toyota (119,809), Mazda (69,433), Hyundai (61,953), Holden (55,081), Ford (47,277), Mitsubishi (42,677), Nissan (39,077), Volkswagen (34,002), Subaru (27,417) and Kia (24,841). Holden and Volkswagen are the only brands in the top 10 to sell fewer cars for the year to date.

The top 10 cars for July were: Toyota Corolla (3427), Toyota Hilux (3136), Ford Ranger (2874), Hyundai i30 (2216), Toyota Camry (2172), Mazda CX-5 (1933), Holden Commodore (1874), Toyota RAV4 (1825), Toyota LandCruiser (1769) and Mazda CX-3 (1744). Mazda3's absence from the pecking order is due to the small car being in runout. A new model will arrive this month (August) and Mazda Australia MD Martin Benders expects the updated model to resume selling in better numbers than the 1501 vehicles sold in July.

The top 10 cars for the year to date are: Hyundai i30 (25,073), Toyota Hilux (24,307), Toyota Corolla (23,971), Mazda3 (21,589), Ford Ranger (21,073), Holden Commodore (15,223), Mazda CX-5 (14,526), Mitsubishi Triton (13,771), Volkswagen Golf (12,459) and Toyota Camry (12,077).