March VFACTS: Big brands bomb

Holden was overtaken by Honda, Subaru and Volkswagen to finish 10th overall in last month’s sales race, with Kia right behind.

According to official VFACTS sales figures due to be released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries on Thursday, Holden sold just over 5110 vehicles in March.

Although that was more than its record low monthly sales tally of just 4689 in February, when it placed eighth, Holden’s March sales were more than 29 per cent down on the same month last year, giving it the same 4.9 per cent market share as Volkswagen and Kia, which was less than 40 sales behind in 11th.

Once again Holden sold fewer than 1000 Commodores last month, but that figure is likely to decline further since we understand almost half of them were homegrown VFII Commodores now out of production.

Commodore sales were down by more than 50 per cent in March, when the only Holden models to lift their sales (apart from the new Equinox SUV) were the Spark and Astra, which rose more than 26 per cent to about 900 sales.

But Holden wasn’t the only big brand to suffer last month, when total industry sales crept up by 1.8 per cent, once again led by strong SUV and 4x4 ute sales.

In fact, half of the top-10 brands decreased their sales month-on-month in March, when all passenger car segments were down except micro/light, people-mover and upper large, and all SUV segments were up except large SUV.

Market leader Toyota slipped by almost four per cent to less than 18,900 sales, with all passenger cars sales except Prius V and Camry Hybrid down, and all SUVs except Kluger up.

Toyota sold just over 3000 HiLux 4x4s (up 3.5%) for a total of 4245, once again easily making it the Japanese brand’s top-seller for the month ahead of Corolla (3575 – down 10%).

Second-placed Mazda fell by more than seven per cent to just over 9700 sales, including almost 3040 Mazda3s (down 8.5%). But while CX-5 sales jumped almost seven per cent to about 2115, sales of the CX-3, CX-9 and BT-50 all slumped.

In contrast, surging into third place -- and overtaking Hyundai in the process -- was Mitsubishi (up more than 16 per cent to over 8800 sales), despite a 37 per cent drop in sales of the Lancer, its only remaining passenger car.

ASX sales spiked by almost 70 per cent to nearly 2340, while Triton also posted healthy gains to finish with 3110 sales, again making it the nation’s third most popular ute and the fourth best-seller overall, while the new Eclipse Cross added more than 530 sales.

Hyundai fell to fourth with less than 8450 sales (down 2.9%), thanks to sales decreases for all models but Accent, Sonata and i30 – the latter up 14 per cent to 2720.

Likewise all models from fifth-placed Ford (almost 6700 sales – down 2.4%) lodged sales slides – except Mustang, EcoSport, Everest, Transit and Ranger, which found about 4065 to lie within 200 of HiLux as the nation’s second top seller.

Next was Nissan (with almost 6200 sales, it was up more than 10% thanks to a 25% SUV sales hike) and Honda, which soared by 80 per cent to almost 5600 sales -- courtesy of all models except Accord, with the CR-V spiking by more than 240 per cent to nearly 1200 sales.

Rounding out the top 10 ahead of Holden were Subaru (up 3.8% to nearly 5200 sales, mostly thanks to XV), which was outside the top 10 last month, and Volkswagen, which was static with just over 5100 sales, with stronger Golf and Amarok 4x4 sales offsetting slower SUV sales.