Toyota continued its dominance of the Australian new vehicle market in September with sales of 17,492 – around 1.1 per-cent higher than September 2012.
Year-to-date Toyota has almost doubled the sales of second-placed Holden with a total of 158,793 (81,904 year-to-date for Holden);
Toyota Corolla was Australia’s best-selling individual model last month (3,443 sales) and the Toyota HiLux ute was number two (3,341) sales. This was the fourth time this year the two Toyotas have been 1-2 on the sales charts (the others were April, May and June).
Overall new car sales in September of 92,662 were down by 2.1 per-cent over the same month 12 months ago. And with passenger car sales down by 3.9 per-cent in the month and light commercial vehicles down by 6.0 per-cent, drawing a line to decreased fleet sales activity - after the previous Labor Government’s ill-conceived swoop on so-called (and subsequently unproven) ‘rorting’ of the Fringe Benefits Tax by new car buyers – is not too difficult.
In fact Toyota’s sales and marketing chief Tony Cramb confirmed the change in the Federal Government had resulted in a positive impact for new car sales with vital fleet sales orders bouncing back after the rejection of proposed changes to the Fringe Benefits Tax on new cars.
“Toyota welcomes the new Federal Government’s public confirmation it will not implement the amendments which had been proposed by its predecessor in the lead-up to the recent election,” Mr Cramb said. “The new Government’s announcement means the tax treatment of salary sacrifice, novated leases and company-owned vehicles remains unchanged from the system that has worked effectively for many years.”
Holden moved 9,614 vehicles out of showroom doors in September to maintain number two ranking, ahead of Hyundai (8,803) and Mazda (7,615). However year-to-date Mazda is still in number three position (78,252) and number one full-line importer.
Ford was fifth in September (7,505 sales) and retains fifth position year-to-date.
They’re popping the corks on the celebratory beverages in Adelaide after Mitsubishi recorded its best September since becoming a full-line importer with 5,993 sales in September. Year-to-date Mitsubishi sales are up by 52 per-cent on 2012.
That strong result for Mitsubishi saw it out-perform Nissan in September – the latter managing sales of 5,556 units.
