In June, for the second consecutive month, Holden edged Toyota to be Australia’s number one best-selling automotive brand.
In June, Australian new car buyers purchased 12,827 new Holdens compared to 12,514 Toyotas.
Toyota blames stock shortages of vehicles imported from earthquake and tsunami-affected Japan for its slower-than-expected May-June sales and is confident of a bounce-back in July and August.
Overall Australian new car sales in June of 96,157 vehicles represented an 11.6 per cent decline over the record of 108,722 sales in June last year.
It is clear that sales in the past month were again affected by supply restraints resulting from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami,” revealed Andrew McKellar, chief executive of the Canberra-based Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI).
“Manufacturers and distributors affected by the Japanese natural disaster are reporting a reliable return of supply,” Mr McKellar added. “We would expect the effect to dissipate over coming months.”
However with 496,236 sales for the first half of 2011, a new record was set for the financial year which ended on 30 June with 1,000,642 new vehicles sold in Australia.
And despite losing the number one crwon to Holden for the past two months, Toyota remains our dominant best-selling brand in years-to-date terms with 85,128 sales so far in 2011 – 22,558 ahead of Holden’s 62,570.
Ford was number three in June with sales of 9,216 veicles and is third overall for the year with a market share of 9.1 per cent.
The battle between Mazda and Hyundai to be the number one importer remains close with the Japanese giant selling 8,626 vehicles in June to Hyundai’s 8,534 and leading overall with 43,796 sales to 42,978.
Of the Europeans, Renault and Volvo are popping champagne.
Volvo had its best-ever June with 638 sales and so far this year the Swedish brand has sold 2782 cars – 14.4 per cent up on the first six months of 2010.
Over at Renault, the re-invigorated French brand saw June sales of 410 vehicles - nearly three times the number sold in June 2010. Year-to-date Renault’s Australian sales are more than 75 per cent up on last year.
