Record Year for New Vehicle Sales with One Month to Go
More new vehicles have been sold this year than during the entire 12 months of 2016.
Vehicle sales continued to set records last month, with 14,594 new vehicle registrations during November.
The Motor Industry Association says this means 1,582 more vehicles were sold during the first 11 months of the year than were sold during all of 2016.
The chief executive of the association, David Crawford, said this would be the fourth consecutive year in a row a record number of vehicles had been sold.
Year to date, sales of passenger and SUVs were up by 6.2 per cent, or 5,888 units, and commercial vehicles by 16.9 per cent ( 6,952) compared with the same period last year.
During November, Toyota remained the overall market leader with 22 per cent of market share (3,227 units), followed by Ford with 11 per cent (1,546 units) and Holden with 10 per cent market share (1,489 units).
Toyota was also the market leader for passenger and SUV registrations with 23 per cent market share (2,358 units) followed by Holden with 11 per cent (1,149 units) and Mazda with 9 per cent market share (904 units). The top selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Toyota Corolla (814 units) followed by the Toyota RAV4 (648 units) and the Toyota Highlander (445 units).
In the commercial sector, Ford was the market leader with 22 per cent (943 units) followed by Toyota with 20 per cent (869 units) and Holden third with 8 per cent market share (340 units).
The Ford Ranger retained the top spot as the bestselling commercial model with 20 per cent share (874 units) followed by the Toyota Hilux with 14 per cent share (620 units). Year to date the Ford Ranger remained both the top commercial vehicle model and the top model overall with 8,824 registrations compared to 7,664 for the Toyota Hilux.
Vehicle segmentation for the month of November returned to more normal patterns of recent times with the top four spots taken up by SUVs and light commercial vehicles. The top segments were SUV medium vehicles with 19 per cent share, followed by the Pick Up/Chassis Cab 4x4 segment with 13 per cent and SUV Large with 12 per cent market share.
“With one month to go the question on everyone’s lips is whether the total for the year will break through the 160,000 mark for the first time. The 150,000 total mark for a calendar year is no longer a question” said Mr Crawford.