VFACTS January: Homegrown heroes decline

AUSTRALIAN new-car sales continue to race along at record-breaking pace, but the January VFACTS results could not conceal the harsh reality that locally-built large cars are in serious decline.

With the future of Mitsubishi once again focussing attention on Australian manufacturers, the January sales figures show that their market fortunes are now largely dependent on imports.

So, while the Mitsubishi 380 dropped 33.5 per cent to just 692 sales, the South Australian company actually saw its monthly tally increase by 11.6 per cent to 5084 sales on the strength of improved demand for Colt, Outlander, Pajero and especially Triton (up from 560 a year ago to 1218).

Ford Falcon sales tumbled in January to a disastrous 1252 – down some 36.6 per cent on the same month a year ago – while Territory dropped 18.2 per cent to 1099 against increased competition from imports.

Yet Blue Oval sales rose overall for the month by 2.3 per cent thanks mainly to the Ranger pick-up (which more than doubled last year’s combined Ranger/Courier total).

Focus and Fiesta posted modest increases of less than 10 per cent, but are underperforming according to outgoing boss Tom Gorman, who would also be concerned over the new Focus CC (37 sales against a projection of 100) and Mondeo (369 rather than the expected 500-plus).

Over at Holden, though, there must be considerable gnashing of teeth because, in a market that was 6.9 per cent stronger overall, the red team’s sales were down by 8.9 per cent.

At least Ford can point to the fact that the Falcon is in run-out mode, but the VE Commodore is still relatively fresh and yet it still dropped 7.6 per cent over the same month in 2007.

And, while Ford and Mitsubishi have replaced local large car sales with their imported small cars and SUVs, Holden’s imports fared poorly in January with Astra down 38.4 per cent, Barina down 41.5 per cent and Viva down 3.2 per cent – despite a trend to small cars – while even the Rodeo could not capitalise on the SUV boom, with combined 4x2 and 4x4 sales a few units behind last year.

Left: Toyota Corolla and Mitsubishi Colt.

About the only good news for Holden was a huge 79.9 per cent rise for the Captiva, which did not yet have the full range a year ago.

Of course, there is no such gloom over at Toyota as the T company was once again dominant. Even its locally produced cars were up on last year – Aurion by 12.5 per cent to buck the large car trend and Camry by 3.1 per cent.

Toyota’s imports were also strong and the rampant Corolla enjoyed another month as the top-selling car in Australia while potentially Commodore-buying fleet operators enjoyed some time on the beach.

Corolla was up 10.3 per cent while combined HiLux sales were up 12.2 per cent, Landcruiser wagon was up 25.6 per cent and the new Kluger jumped an incredible 124.7 per cent. Even Tarago and HiAce enjoyed big gains, though on smaller bases.

The only bad news for Toyota was a surprising dip of 2.6 per cent for Yaris – no doubt through increased competition, especially from Mazda2 – and a 1.6 per cent drop for RAV4, despite the introduction of a V6.

Toyota fell just 77 units short of matching the combined sales of Holden and Ford for the third time.

Of the dedicated importers, Mazda was again the stand-out performer with 7103 sales – only 573 units behind parent company Ford – for an amazing 8.6 per cent market share, despite losing ground with the aging Mazda3 and Mazda6.

Mazda2 was, as expected, a big contributor (the new model up 158.9 per cent) and, while the CX-7 was down 100 units, this was more than replaced with the bigger CX-9, which contributed 353 sales in its first full month.

Honda finished fifth for the month, well clear of Mitsubishi, Nissan (down a little, with Navara and Tiida struggling) and Subaru (up a remarkable 1000 units, mainly Imprezas).

Despite losing ground with both Accord models, Honda enjoyed a massive month for the CR-V – up more than 50 per cent on recent months and, at 1575 units, just 200 shy of the Civic, which was up 17 per cent on last year.

Jazz also had a strong month, just ahead of the 8.5 per cent Light car segment growth figure, but fell 47 units short of the Mazda2 for segment runner-up spot behind the dominant Toyota Yaris (1000 units ahead).

In other market segments, Corolla was the top-selling Small car by about 1000 units from the Mazda3, which in turn was 1000 clear of Focus, Civic, Lancer, Astra, Impreza and Golf (which jumped 27.5 per cent).

Camry, of course, took Medium honours from the Mazda6 while Commodore won a Large car segment that was down 20 per cent.

SUV sales, on the other hand, were up by 23.4 per cent, with the CR-V leaping into Compact leadership from the Subaru Forester and RAV4, Toyota’s Prado edging out the Ford Territory and Holden Captiva by 100 units in Medium while Landcruiser dominated Large and the BMW X5 had a big month in the Luxury SUV segment to turn the tables on the Lexus RX.

Total sales for January were 82,270, some 5334 more than last year’s January record. Locally manufactured models dropped 11.5 per cent while imports rose by 10.4 per cent.

Top 10 brands in January:
1: Toyota	17,852 (21.7%)
2: Holden	10,253 (12.5%)
3: Ford	7676 (9.3%)
4: Mazda	7103 (8.6%)
5: Honda	5969 (7.3%)
6: Mitsubishi	5084 (6.2%)
7: Nissan	4867 (5.9%)
8: Subaru	4059 (4.9%)
9: Hyundai	3172 (3.9%)
10: Volkswagen	2374 (2.9%)