VFACTS for February: Commodore retakes top spot

The Holden Commodore has reassumed its position as most popular car in Australia, according to the February VFACTS sales figures. Briefly topping the table for the month of January, the Mazda3 was overtaken by Holden's large car last month. Mazda is unlikely to be shedding many tears though, since the '3' actually bettered its sales tally for February, versus February 2008.

The Mazda missed out on hitting the 3000-unit mark by just 11 cars (2989 sold in February) and gained 5.8 per cent on the figure for February 2008. Adding to Mazda's undoubted delight, the small car's performance in February's shrinking market handed it market share of 18.0 per cent of the segment, against 14.1 per cent last year.

"For the Mazda3 to be selling so well just two months out from the new-generation Mazda3 launch is outstanding and we couldn't be happier," said Mazda's MD, Doug Dickson.

"What a fitting way to say farewell to a car that, since its arrival five years ago, has been a firm favourite with Australian consumers."

Curiously though, the Mazda's total for February fell behind its January '09 total, suggesting Mazda may be running out of runout stock or buyers are hearing that there's a new model around the corner.

The Commodore sold 3376 units, a 21.7 per cent drop compared with February last year -- and that typified the whole market for the month. Placing third behind the Commodore was the Toyota Corolla, which is suffering a bad spell in the market, losing 33.9 per cent of its February '08 sales for a figure of 2769 cars sold last month. In fact, the Corolla's change of fortunes in 12 months accounted for as much as 42 per cent of the total small-car segment shrinkage in February.

Placing fourth was the Toyota HiLux, combining sales of 4x2 and 4x4 models, for 2619 sales in February. Ford's Falcon, selling 2386 units for the month, was 5.3 per cent down on February '08.

Unlike January, there was little of interest to report from the February results, unless an across-the-board decline in sales is of interest!

Audi continues on its winning way with more cars sold in February this year than February '08 (806 sales versus 765). Not surprisingly, it also remains ahead of sales year-to-date and appears to be well placed for another record-breaking year in 2009! The launch of the Q5 SUV and an upswing in sales of the A3 did the trick for the prestige importer during February.

Another brand to confuse the punters was Dodge, which relied on Journey and Nitro to pick up more sales for last month (356 versus 226 in February '08). Even the Avenger added to the tally, but the Caliber has fallen by the wayside.

Hyundai picked up 140 extra sales in February (4151 versus 4010 in February '08), but the i30 can take particular credit for that result, since 1234 sales last month represented a substantial improvement on the 687 cars sold the year before.

Marginally ahead for the month, Mercedes-Benz (1365 versus 1338 for February '08) drew heavily on the C-Class (501 versus 372 last year) and its heavily promoted sales campaign to stay in the race.

Toyota remained the top-selling brand in the market with 14,274 units sold for the month. The company's market share for the year to date is down over two per cent, but that's not bad sitting alongside a sales slump of nearly 11,000 units over the same period.

Toyota's situation reflects the whole market. For the first six months of last year, the market was buoyant and on the way to another sales record for 2009. Enter the second half and the market took a nose dive. Now, with sales down for the first two months of this year, they compare badly with the first two months of last year.

Following Toyota in year to date figures, the top ten car companies comprised: Holden, Ford, Mazda, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Hyundai, Subaru and Volkswagen. All manufacturers in the top ten, other than Hyundai, have lost ground in 2009 year-to-date stats.

The total market for February amounted to 70,241 units, a 21.9 per cent (19,657) decline from the market in February 2008. All classes sold fewer vehicles than in February last year. Based on seasonally adjusted sales for the year to date, the FCAI (Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries) forecasts a total market for 2009 of 863,000 vehicles.

"This result is consistent with the trend of recent months and reflects the impact of broader economic conditions on the new vehicle market," said FCAI Chief Executive Andrew McKellar.