VFACTS July: Retail decline continues in 2018

UPDATED: Article updated to include official VFACTS statistics for July 2018

VFACTS is still two days away from officially revealing sales statistics for the month of July, but information received by motoring.com.au indicates last month saw a significant downturn in retail activity. And July may just be the worst monthly decline this year.

According to an industry insider, leading brand Toyota is expected to have sold around a thousand fewer vehicles in July of 2018 than during the same month last year. For Mazda, news of a five-year warranty couldn't come soon enough – literally – with the second-placed brand believed to have experienced a drop of over 600 sales for the month.

Hyundai, sitting in third spot currently, is understood to have sold over 400 fewer cars for the month, year on year. It's the same for most of the other brands in the VFACTS top 10: Mitsubishi got off lightly, with just 90 fewer sales for the month, and Honda dropped by not quite 300 sales, but Ford was down nearly 800 vehicles. Subaru, a past entrant in the VFACTS top 10, experienced a year-on-year decline of nearly 900 sales.

Holden, still suffering from comparison with strong sales of locally-manufactured vehicles this time last year is anticipated to be staring down the barrel of around 2500 lost sales for July.

Kia managed to stay ahead of its July 2017 tally, says our source, adding 137 sales last month. It was a similar situation for Nissan too, with 166 extra sales in July. Likewise for Volkswagen, monthly sales rose by 177 units, year on year.

Although Holden is one brand doing it tough for obvious reasons, the July sales drop is more a reflection of consumer sentiment across the whole market. Maybe it's about the country's political choices, but all classes of vehicle sold in lower numbers last month than in July 2017.

Not one passenger-car segment sold more vehicles last month than during July 2017, and even SUVs struggled. Only small and upper large SUVs sold better in July 2018 than during the same month last year.

Light commercial vehicles are down too, with even the stronger sales of 4x4 pick-ups barely able to offset the weaker sales of 4x2 pick-ups, light buses and vans combined. That could be a further sign that utes are falling out of favour. In some good news for Toyota, the HiLux (pictured) may have been the strongest selling model line in the country last month, with July sales believed to be over 2700 units.

Official VFACTS figures are below (UPDATED: Aug 3)