The Australian new car market has seen its best January result since 2018 with 84,873 vehicles sold last month. This represents an 11.9 per cent increase from the same period last year according to the latest VFacts released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI).
“This data is the best January result since 2018 and shows that the industry is continuing to recover following years of supply chain disruption and delay,” FCAI Chief Executive Tony Weber said.
Positive Numbers Across
Sales across all territories were up. The ACT increased by 18.6 per cent with 1,394 vehicles sold; New South Wales, 15 per cent (26,484); Queensland, 14.3 per cent (18,766); South Australia, 11.9 per cent (5,786); the NT, 7.8 per cent (665); Victoria, 9.7 per cent (22,367); Western Australia 4.3 per cent (7,901) and Tasmania, 2.9 per cent (1,510).
Sales were up across all segments with SUVs still being the preferred vehicle type with 46,698 units sold accounting for 55 percent of sales. Light commercial vehicles came in second with 21.9 percent of the market at 18,546 units sold. Passenger vehicles made up 19.6 per cent of vehicle sales with 16,602 units sold. Meanwhile, heavy vehicles made up 3.6 percent of the sales this month with 3,027 units sold.
Market Leaders
Toyota led the market with a total of 13,363 vehicles sold. Mazda was second with 9,407, followed by Ford (6,624), Kia (6,006) and Hyundai (5,809).
The Ford Ranger was the highest selling model with 4,749 sales reported. Toyota’s Hi-Lux followed with 4,131. Tesla’s Model 3 was third with 2,927 followed by Mazda’s CX-3 (2,417) and Mazda’s CX-5 (2,189).
Electric Vehicles
Sales of battery electric, hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles accounted for 12.28 per cent (10,426) with battery electric vehicles representing 5.71 per cent (4,852).
With the Tesla Model 3 being the third highest selling car in the market, this is the first time that a purely EV model “ranked so highly”. Plug-in variants of the MG ZS and the Mitsubishi Outlander also made it into the top 10.
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