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By
EWAN KENNEDY
14 January 2008
Somewhere in Australia on Saturday the 15th of December last
year the one-millionth vehicle sold during 2007 changed hands. It was
the first time the Australian automotive industry has ever reached that
important psychological milestone, indicating not only the strength of
the industry itself, but the ongoing nature of our booming economy.
According to figures just released by industry statistician
VFACTS, a total of 1,049,982 vehicles were sold in Australia in
2007, easily exceeding the previous record of 988,269 set in 2005.
The sales were up 9.1% on those of 2006, though part of that big
increase was due to the fact that sales slipped slightly during
2006 due to some loss in buyer confidence largely because of
rising fuel prices.
It would appear that buyers have become accustomed to higher
fuel prices and that numbers significantly past a dollar a litre
no longer faze them. It will be interesting to see what happens
when the $1.50 a litre mark hits. Something that can’t be far
away.
However, fuel prices certainly didn’t affect sales of SUVs in
2007, with an increase of 16.0% over 2006. All market segments in
the passenger car arena saw percentage increases. It came as no
surprise that Light and Small Cars were up, by 10.2% and 5.9%
respectively. On an encouraging note, sales of Large Cars, most of
which are built in Australia, were also up, albeit by only 2.3%
compared to the overall increase of 9.1% for the complete vehicle
field. And that increase in Large Car sales was despite that fact
that the aging Ford Falcon was in the last months of its life. A
new model is expected to be shown at the Melbourne International
Motor Show and to go on sale within months of that event.
Holden Commodore took out the number one spot in vehicle sales
for the 12th year running with 57,307 changing hands in 2007. That’s
almost 10,000 ahead of second-placed Toyota Corolla.
Interestingly, another Toyota, the HiLux ute, took out third spot,
indicating that the burgeoning light commercial continues to
excite buyers.
There were three other Toyotas in the top 10, Yaris at number
six, and Camry and Aurion in seventh and eighth. Note that if
Camry and Aurion were combined - after all they are the same car -
the former with a four-cylinder engine, the latter with a V6 –
they would have taken out overall second place, beating little
brother Corolla.
Other top 10 positions are: fourth, Mazda3; fifth, Ford Falcon;
ninth, Hyundai Getz; tenth, Holden Astra.
It’s no surprise that Toyota continues to be the number one
seller in Australia by a huge margin, it has been comfortably in
front since January and never looked like losing the sales race.
Toyota's total of 236,647 sales gave it a very healthy market
share of 22.5% of the overall market. Which makes Holden's 14.0%
and Ford's 10.3% positively dismal in comparison.
Indeed, there were periods during 2007 when Toyota outsold
Holden and Ford combined. A situation the Japanese-Australian
company seems set on achieving on an annual basis by the end of
2008. Toyota plans to see about 250,000 vehicles leave its
showrooms this year. On a total market forecast to be just over
one million that would make its share very close to 25%.
© Copyright
Marque Publishing Company
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