VFACTS: Hyundai takes a tumble

HYUNDAI Motor Company Australia (HMCA) has slipped behind Holden and Ford on the monthly sales charts after taking a big tumble last month, according to official VFACTS figures released today.

The South Korean car-maker’s sales were down by 31.2 per cent last month compared with August 2015, representing the biggest drop out of all of the top-10 brands, with all but the popular Tucson (+324 per cent) and lower volume Genesis and i40 recording negative results.

The i30 hatch dropped from fourth best-selling model in July to eighth with 1864 units shifted – well down on the massive June haul of 6432 units – and has now slipped behind the Toyota HiLux and Corolla in overall year-to-date sales.

Hyundai’s big drop comes a week after the company’s chief operating officer Scott Grant defended the practice of artificially enhancing sales figures at the end of critical periods, telling journalists that pre-reporting cars does not matter “one iota because each car can only ever be sold once”.

The Korean giant is still third in terms of year-to-date sales, and is a couple of hundred units ahead of where it was last year.

It was another bumper month for new-car sales, with 94,909 units shifted, up by 4.6 per cent or just over 4200 vehicles from last August, largely due to continued strong sales of SUVs which were up by 10.6 per cent, and light-commercial vehicles that grew by 16.2 per cent.

Overall, the market is ahead of the first eight months of 2015 by 3.0 per cent or about 23,000 vehicles with 784,380 units sold to the end of August.

Toyota experienced a big 28.6 per cent bump in sales on the back of strong results for the Corolla, Camry and HiLux, and surprisingly solid results from the RAV4 (+25 per cent), Prado (+55.5 per cent) and the hulking LandCruiser off-roader – which was up by 104.5 per cent to 1350 units, making it the second best-selling SUV in both the upper large and higher-volume large segments.

Mazda was steady in second with 9258 sales, with drops for the Mazda6, MX-5 and CX-3 counteracted by a strong debut from the new-generation CX-9 SUV that recorded 738 sales, its best month ever.

GM Holden dipped by 2.6 per cent over last August, with the Australian-built Commodore (-9.0 per cent) and Cruze (-18.1 per cent) down, while the Colorado pick-up that launched last month received a big 35 per cent boost for the 4x4 variant.

The Trax crossover continued to grow its share and the Spark micro hatch added more volume, but the European-sourced Astra Sport and Insignia recorded just nine and five sales respectively last month.

Ford kept up its momentum, rising by 27.9 per cent despite double-digit drops for several key models including the Kuga, Mondeo, Fiesta, EcoSport and the Australian-built Territory.

The overall lift for the Blue Oval came from renewed interest in the Focus that was 218 per cent ahead of August 2015, while the Ranger continued to attract new buyers with huge growth for both 4x2 and 4x4 variants. The Mustang pony car was the company’s second best seller for the month with 717 sales.

Despite Triton 4x4 sales falling off a cliff – down 41 per cent – Mitsubishi grew by 10 per cent with the ageing ASX crossover easily the best-selling small SUV in the country with 1781 sales, enough to snare ninth spot on the overall sales chart, just a few units ahead of the RAV4.

Double-digit percentage increases for the Navara pick-up, Pulsar, Qashqai and X-Trail kept Nissan in seventh place with an 18.7 per cent overall lift, while Volkswagen sales fell by 18.8 per cent last month.

The German car-maker appeared to run out of Tiguan stock ahead of this month’s launch of the all-important second-generation model that steps up from the small to the medium SUV segment.

Kia continued its march into the top 10 with a 26.2 per cent improvement thanks to significant sales increases for the Cerato, Carnival and Sportage as the Rio and Optima dipped.

Subaru’s haul of 3362 was just one unit more than its August 2015 figure, with the Forester the only model in positive territory, while the new Levorg sports wagon found 229 homes.

Just outside the top 10 Honda was steady (-3.7 per cent), with the Civic sedan still proving popular, while Mercedes-Benz lifted by 11.5 per cent with the compact A-Class and CLA increasing as the C-Class took a 30.4 per cent dip.

BMW and Audi each grew by a little over 5.0 per cent, Jaguar leapt up by 202 per cent, Volvo lifted by 50 per cent and Lexus recorded its best monthly sales ever, with 789 units shifted.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) Australia continued its horror run with Dodge down by 70.5 per cent and Chrysler down by 47.7 per cent.

The Italian-American automotive giant is no doubt hoping the Alfa Romeo Giulia can turn things around when it arrives early next year following Alfa’s 65.3 per cent fall, while the Patriot/Compass replacement cannot come soon enough for Jeep, which was down by 40 per cent.

Top 10 selling brands August 2016

Brand	Sales	Variance %
Toyota	18,650	+28.6
Mazda	9258	+1.0
Holden	7667	-2.6
Ford	6849	+27.9
Hyundai	6536	-31.2
Mitsubishi	6136	+10.1
Nissan	5616	+18.7
Volkswagen	3893	-18.8
Kia	3710	+26.2
Subaru	3362	0.0

Top 10 selling models August 2016

Model	Sales
Toyota Corolla	3554
Toyota HiLux	3311
Ford Ranger	2964
Mazda3	2818
Toyota Camry	2458
Holden Commodore	1952
Mazda CX-5	1902
Hyundai i30	1864
Mitsubishi ASX	1781
Toyota RAV4	1766