January 19, 2020 |
2019 New Vehicle Sales Decrease in Challenging Market
The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) today released the full year, 2019 new vehicle sales results. The sales data was calculated using the automotive industry’s statistical service, VFACTS, which will be enhanced with system improvements from 1st January 2020.
For the full calendar year of 2019, a total of 1,062,867 new vehicles were recorded as sold, a 7.8 per cent decrease on the full year of 2018. The 2019 numbers are the lowest annual sales result reported in VFACTS since 2011.
During December, 84,239 new vehicle sales were recorded in 2019, a decrease of 3.8 per cent on December 2018.
Tony Weber, chief executive of the FCAI, commented on the sales results:
“First and foremost, and on behalf of the entire automotive industry, the Chamber would like to offer our condolences to those affected by the devastating bushfires that have ravaged Australia over the past weeks. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.
“Regarding the actual new vehicle sales results: 2019 reflects a tough year for the Australian economy, with challenges including tightening of lending, movements in exchange rates, slow wages growth and, of course, the extreme environmental factors our country is experiencing.”
Mr Weber noted the continuing changes in the automotive market with 2019 seeing a further shift to SUV sales, which now make up 45.5 per cent of the total market, a 2.5 percentage point increase from 2018.
The other numbers for the full year showed the light commercial vehicle share growing by 0.6 percentage points, up to 21.2 per cent of the market, while passenger cars decreased by 3.1 percentage points to 29.7 per cent.
Although SUVs made up the largest share of the market, sales of SUVs declined in 2019 by 2.4 per cent, compared to 2018, sales of passenger vehicles declined by 16.5 per cent and sales of light commercial vehicles declined by 5.2 per cent.
In 2019, the Toyota Hilux again claimed the number one sales position across all categories, with 47,649 sales. The Hilux was followed by the Ford Ranger, again number two in the market with 40,960 sales, followed by the Toyota Corolla (30,468), the Hyundai i30 (28,378) and the Mitsubishi Triton (25,819).
When it came to the brands, Toyota led the market with 19.4 per cent market share, followed by Mazda (9.2 per cent), Hyundai (8.1 per cent), Mitsubishi (7.8 per cent) and Ford (6.0 per cent).
During the announcement of the 2019 sales results, the FCAI noted further improvements to the VFACTS data recording system.
“Like any data platform, continuous improvement is a key requirement,” Mr Weber said.
“For this reason, we have instituted a further confirmation on the data presented to the VFACTS system from our members. This data is, as necessary, verified against the national registration database and, when confirmed, vehicles are accepted into the monthly VFACTS reporting system.”
