The new car market continues to outperform other retail sectors with February sales of 4,495 vehicles representing growth over February 2012 of 5.2 per-cent.
While passenger car sales of 2,631 vehicles were down by 5.7 per-cent compared to February last year, the Light Commercial segment (3,752 vehicles) was up by 26.9 per-cent and SUV popularity shows no signs of slowing with monthly sales of 3,336 vehicles representing growth of 14.2 per-cent.
Toyota retained its dominance at the top of the leader board. Toyota’s total of 16,017 sales beat the next best (Mazda) by more than 80 per-cent. Toyota sales were 7.9 per-cent higher than February last year – above the industry average – and the company captured 17.8 per-cent market share.
But Mazda continues to be the talking-point of the industry – comfortably second overall (and leading full-line importer) with February sales of 8,728 vehicles and a market share of 9.7 per-cent. The just-launched Mazda CX-5 SUV with a more powerful 2.5-litre petrol engine will no doubt further ignite Mazda’s phenomenal growth.
Holden retains third position overall with sales of 7,683 vehicles delivering a market share of 8.5 per-cent. But was beaten in February with Nissan claiming the third-best result of 8,212 sales. This was Nissan’s 10th consecutive record month and in its first month on-sale, the all-new Pulsar sedan logged 1,275 sales – Pulsar’s all-new hatchback version arrives in a few months.
Hyundai holds fifth pace overall with February sales of 7,505 vehicles, ahead of Ford (6,591).
Fiat Chrysler Group is also on-track for a strong 2013 with February sales of 2144 vehicles - 34.9 per-cent up on the same month last year. So far this year the American-Italian conglomerate is 44.7 per-cent ahead of 2012.
