2017 was a record year for new car sales in Australia with a total of 1,189,116 registrations. This record was kicked along by the best December ever with 102,820 new cars sold, an increase of 4.1 per cent on the corresponding month in 2016.
December is referred to as the silly season for a reason and there are some anomalies in the month’s data.
VFACTS reported Holden finished December in second spot with 12,179 sales, a massive 57.7 per cent improvement on December 2016.
Now December is a time when manufacturers will frantically register cars in order to achieve yearly targets. These cars go on to be sold as demos in January clean out sales. This year it was Holden that may have got overexcited.
Holden’s new Astra (a very good car – review will be up in the next week) was Australia’s second best selling car in December with a huge 3533 sales. This is the best month for the Astra in what seems like an eternity.
Another Holden model, the Colorado ute also had a stormer (based on the numbers) finishing in fourth spot with 3222 units moved.
In response to Holden’s extraordinary December, I can only quote Gwen Stefani, “this shit is bananas, B A N A N A S.”
It was business as usual at the top of the table, the Toyota HiLux was the best selling model with 3949 sales.
Mitsubishi has had a big 2017 and almost chased down Mazda to get on the podium.
SUVs are starting to pull away from passenger cars, achieving a market share of 39.3 per cent, passenger cars took a 35.7 share.
Top 10 selling new vehicles – December 2017
Toyota HiLux - 3949
Holden Astra - 3533
Ford Ranger - 3458
Holden Colorado - 3222
Mazda 3 - 2807
Mitsubishi Triton - 2645
Toyota Corolla - 2641
Holden Commodore - 2229
Mitsubishi ASX - 2128
Mazda CX-5 - 2113
Top 10 selling vehicle brands – November 2017
Toyota - 17,081
Holden - 12,179
Mazda - 9102
Mitsubishi - 9019
Hyundai - 6182
Ford - 5636
Volkswagen - 5136
Honda - 5041
Nissan - 4581
Subaru - 4132
More: All News
