While the main headline is the imported Mazda3 topping Holden Commodore to be Australia’s best-selling car in 2011, the sub headline is – despite local and international natural calamities – Australians’ passion for buying new cars remained strong.
Compared to 50 years ago in 1961, Australia’s population has grown by around 100 per cent, but new car sales have grown by more than 600 per cent. In fact last year, for the fourth time, we bought more than 1.0 million new cars, ranking Australia amongst the global top 10 countries for new car ownership.
So while the makeup of the numbers will vary – success of the Mazda3 highlights a swing to small cars over large – low interest rates, moderate inflation and economic growth point to 2012 being another year of new car sales above 1.0 million. Put simply, a decade ago large cars outsold mid-size cars by a ratio of four-to-one every year, but now the gap is now just over 2,000 vehicles and large cars account for less than eight per cent of the overall total.
Same for Sport Utility vehicles – Australian still love SUVS, but in 2011 sales growth within that segment was with compact SUVs.
The top five-selling vehicles in Australia last year were:
Mazda3 41,429
Holden Commodore 40,617
Toyota HiLux 36,124
Toyota Corolla 36,087
Holden Cruze 33,784
For the ninth consecutive year Toyota was Australia’s market leader with overall sales of 181,624 vehicles. This is more than 55,000 vehicles ahead of second-placed Holden and equivalent to Toyota dealers nationally selling a total of 500 cars per day.
However Toyota sales and marketing chief David Buttner reckons the mid-year supply problems resulting from the earthquake/tsunami in Japan and floods in Thailand cost Toyota some 33,000 sales. Despite that ‘double-whammy’ Toyota HiLux was the number one best-selling vehicle in Queensland, West Australia and the Northern Territory and Toyota racked-up sales of 46,671 SUVs – 17,500 more than its nearest rival,
Ford was number three with total sales of 91,243, Mazda finished fourth (best of the full-line importers) with 88,333 sales - ahead of fifth-placed Hyundai (87,008).
Mercedes-Benz won the battle of prestige German brands with 21,180 sales to 17,508 for BMW.
Overall new vehicle sales on 1,008,437 sales were 2.6 per-cent down on 2010. Total passenger car sales were down by 5.5 per-cent, but SUV sales grew by 3.8 per-cent.
“2011 full year sales are an exceptional result given the effects of natural disasters both at home and abroad throughout the year,” revealed Ian Chalmers, chief executive of the Canberra-based Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries. “The uptake of new vehicles was impacted early in the year by economic uncertainty, closely followed by natural disasters in the key markets of Western Australia, Victoria and Queensland.”
“Sales were further subdued by Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, with a resulting shortage of export vehicles from that country a secondary outcome of the extreme loss of life experienced by the Japanese people. The resilience of the Australian marketplace, combined with strong industry resolve, saw sales recover strongly in the fourth quarter.” Mr Chalmers added.
