October VFACTS: Soft market for some

Australia's new-vehicle industry became a two-speed race in October, when total sales declined by 1.5 per cent month on month to be 1.9 per cent down so far this year, but the SUV and luxury segments continued to buck the overall trend.

Official VFACTS figures due to be released today are expected to show that Toyota led the market as usual with 17,382 sales, which was nevertheless 4.1 per cent down for the month and leaves it 4.8 per cent down year to date.

The Corolla was Australia's top-selling vehicle in October for the seventh month this year, with more than 3800 sales, followed by the HiLux and Mazda3, which now lies 900-odd units behind the Corolla so far this year.

But it was Hyundai that soared into second place with 8401 sales (up 3.3 per cent) ahead of Holden, which was down a massive 28.4 per cent with just 7542 sales for the month. While Holden is down 2.1 per cent for the year, Hyundai is up 3.7 per cent for the year and is now just over 100 units behind third-placed Mazda (down 2.7% YTD).

Perhaps co-incidentally, however, Hyundai currently has the second highest number of registered but unsold dealer demonstration and near-new models listed on the Carsales Network, behind Ford. In contrast, motoring.com.au understands that some other brands wholesaled hundreds more vehicles than usual to keep up with demand.

The Blue Oval was fifth top selling brand in October with 6337 sales (down 15.3 per cent), behind Mazda on 6880 (down 13.6 per cent), and remains 6.2 per cent down YTD.

Nissan (5759, up 8.9%), Mitsubishi (5115, up 0.9%), Volkswagen (4764, down 3.0%), Subaru (4003, up 40%) and Mercedes-Benz (3150, up a big 39.3%) rounded out the top 10 in October.

While Nissan and Mitsubishi remain 15.1 and 9.3 per cent down YTD respectively, in October Mercedes-Benz, BMW (up 18.7%) and Audi (up 25.9%) continued to ride a surge in popularity of luxury cars.

Last month Mercedes-Benz sold more passenger cars than Honda, Kia, Mitsubishi, Nissan and even Ford. If sales of the new C-Class, which doubled its sales last month to 862, continues at this rate it will outsell the Falcon.

In the lead-up to its final FG X model, Ford sold just 396 Falcons in October (down 63.2%) to be 34.3 per cent down YTD with just 5360 sales. Meantime, Holden sold 2210 Commodores (down 33.3%) to be up 17.5 per cent YTD.

At the other end of the market, while Porsche sales were up a sizeable 27.7 per cent in October and 43.9 per cent YTD, so far this year Mercedes has sold more AMG models (2305) than it has in total (2224).

YTD, excluding commercial vehicles, Mercedes (21,872 sales – up 16%) now lies more than 3000 sales ahead of BMW (18,801, up 10.7%), which is less than 3000 sales ahead of Audi (16,014, up 20.4%). Combined the three big Germans are up about 15 per cent year on year.

BMW's 3 Series (368) continued to lag behind the C-Class (862) in the mid-size luxury segment, attracting less than half as many buyers as the C-Class last month, when it was also outsold by the CLA-Class with 371 sales.

In the other luxury classes, the Benz E-Class (135) continued its dominance over the BMW 5 Series (75), Jaguar XF (69) and Audi A6 (33) in the large segment, while Audi's A3 (461) led the A-Class (371) and BMW 1 Series (207) in the small segment.

The BMW 4 Series led the E-Class in the $80-100,000 sports car sector (186 v 125), while the S-Class (37) outsold Maserati (30), BMW's 7 Series (3) and Audi's A8 (2).

The luxury SUV sales boom continued last month, when the BMW X5 (366) thoroughly outsold the M-Class (280) in the large segment, the Audi Q5 (347) and BMW X3 (211) led the mid-size segment and Merc's GLA (200) outpaced the Q5 (175), Lexus' new NX (174) and X1 (145) for the first time.

Last month 85 and 55 per cent spikes in rental and government SUV sales respectively helped the segment post a 9.7 per cent overall sales increase. SUV is also the only vehicle class to be ahead YTD (by 5.3%), and the biggest gain has been posted in the small SUV segment (up 17.5%).

Once again sales were slower in all states except for NSW last month, the mining states of West Australia and Queensland showing the biggest sales declines both in October and YTD.

The 10 best selling cars during October were: Toyota Corolla (3819), Toyota Hilux (3228), Mazda3 (2928), Hyundai i30 (2475), Ford Ranger (2405), Holden Commodore (2210), Toyota Camry (1908), Mitsubishi Triton (1787), Mazda CX-5 (1594) and Toyota RAV4 (1582).

And the 10 best selling cars for the year to date are: Toyota Corolla (36,925), Mazda3 (36,011), Toyota Hilux (31,876), Holden Commodore (25,994), Hyundai i30 (25,791), Ford Ranger (22,539), Mitsubishi Triton (18,654), Mazda CX-5 (18,237), Toyota Camry (17,689) and Volkswagen Golf (16,157).

October Top 10 brands:

Toyota – 17,382
Hyundai – 8401
Holden – 7542
Mazda – 6880
Ford – 6337
Nissan – 5759
Mitsubishi – 5115
Volkswagen – 4764
Subaru – 4003
Mercedes-Benz – 3150