New vehicle sales fall off a cliff

Ok, this is becoming a real worry now. The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), has as usual dropped the latest monthly new vehicle sales figures for the month of October 2019. If you don’t like good news, turn away now. But for the 19th consecutive month, it has frankly all turned to shit.

Tony Weber, chief executive of the FCAI, said “Year to date sales of new motor vehicles in 2019 are almost 78,000 units (eight per cent) lower than the same period in 2018.

“While the drought and other domestic conditions are impacting the market, our key concern is the effect over-regulation of the financial sector is having on new vehicle sales.”

“The FCAI and our members have been concerned about the risk averse approach to lending in Australia for some time and see improved access to finance as a key to driving economic growth in 2020.”

“Of particular interest is the fact that sales are down across all buyer types, with private sales down 5.2 per cent compared to October 2018, business sales are down 8.2 per cent and government sales are down 7.3 per cent.”

82,456 vehicles were sold in October, down 9.1 per cent for the same period last year.

The Sports Utility Market, dual-cabs and the like, fell by 3 per cent compared to October 2018, while Passenger cars were smashed via a 15.3 per cent decline. The Light Commercial Market shifted 17,164 units, down 11 per cent.

As usual The Toyota Hilux was the top selling vehicle in October 2019, followed by the Ford Ranger (3,160), the Hyundai i30 (2,216) the Toyota RAV4 (2,132) and the Toyota Corolla (2,117).

Toyota in general is top of the pops with 16,988, or a 20.6 per cent market share. On its heels is Hyundai (7,455 for 9 per cent market share), Mazda (6,370 sales for 7.7 per cent market share), Kia (5,062 sales for 6.1 per cent market share) and Ford (4,891 for 5.9 per cent market share).