Australian new car sales in August of 88,157 vehicles represented a decline on August 2013 of 5.5 per-cent.
Hardest hit were passenger cars with sales down 11.2 per-cent on August last year.
However in year-to-date terms, local new car sales are only down by 2.5 per-cent so the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries and all vehicle companies are still tipping we’ll crack the magical 1.0-million number by 31 December (the FCAI is calling it at 1.106 million currently).
In August, Toyota Corolla was our best-selling individual model for the sixth consecutive month with sales of 3,247 units as Toyota racked-up 15,638 sales for the month to beat second-placed Holden (8,635 vehicles) by more than 80 per-cent.
With sales of 133,238 vehicles so far this year, Toyota continues its dominance of the local new car market with no other brand breaking 75,000 sales so far.
Holden retains second position with a total of 74,398 sales so far this year (bucking the overall trend by being 2.9 per-cent up on last year) ahead of Mazda (67,487).
Mazda finished fourth in August with sales of 7,529 vehicles, behind Hyundai with 8,601 sales for the month.
That’s an August record for Hyundai and the 27th consecutive month of year-on-year growth.
The margin to Mazda to claim third position year-to-date has now closed to less than 1,000 cars with Hyundai logging 66,549 sales in the first eight months of the year…although ‘officially’ neither company will admit they’re engaged in a battle on to secure the title of Australia’s best-selling fully imported car brand in 2014 (yep and the Aussies never ‘sledge’ in international cricket do they?).
Ford retails fifth position with sales in August of 6,908 vehicles.
Of the rest, Fiat-Chrysler Group is closing in on a ‘Top-10’ ranking with a record August of more than 3,700 sales for a market share of 4.2 per-cent (an all-time record). Jeep Grand Cherokee (1,477sales) remains Australia’s best-selling large SUV and – aided by a strong first-up showing for the all-new Cherokee mid-sizer - Jeep was the number two best-selling barnd in the SUV segment (beaten only by Toyota).
And Fiat is Australia’s fastest-growing mainstream brand with sales up 127 per-cent year-on-year.
