In our first piece covering July's new car sales, we looked into overall sales across the industry as well as a breakdown by vehicle segment. This time around we’ll focus on how different makes and models fared last month.
New car sales by brand
After a positive month for Toyota, where the Japanese manufacturer grew sales by 5.7%, the company was able to increase its share of the new car market to a commanding 21.5%. The lift in sales came as the auto-maker realised the benefits from its wide line-up of popular cars.
Mazda held onto second place despite its sales sliding 7.8%, thanks in no part to the sharp decline of its recently released Mazda 3. Rounding out the top three was Hyundai. With its sales only falling by 1.1%, the company made ground in closing the gap to Mazda, although it still has some work to do to overtake its rival.
Elsewhere, a host of car makers saw their sales fall rather abruptly, including Mitsubishi (-11.2%), Ford (-10.6%), Nissan (-10.7%), Volkswagen (-9.3%) and the worst of all, Holden (-16.8%). Woes for the lion badge show no sign of abating, and at this rate, the company will be lucky to retain its position inside the top 10 best-selling car brands in Australia.
Not for the first time, Kia managed to improve its sales, which rose 2.3%. Subaru was another to impress, recording a 4.4% increase in cars registered. Nevertheless, the best performer last month was Mercedes-Benz as its sales surged 25.7% following the release of the all-new A-Class.
New car sales by model
It was Toyota’s vehicles that performed brightly during July, featuring five times among the top 10 cars sold. Although sales for the HiLux dropped 10.4%, and the Landcruiser fell off the pace by 0.9%, Toyota had raging success with the Corolla (up 25.1%), RAV4 (up 30.5%) and Prado (up 13%). As a result, the Japanese car company took out the gold and silver medal for the month, with the Corolla leaping over the Ford Ranger despite its own sales jumping 7.4%.
As we touched on earlier the new generation Mazda 3 had a terrible month after its sales plummeted 22.5%. A lot of publicity has focused on the higher price for the new release, and sales data would seem to suggest it has done the company no favours among prospective buyers. When compared with the large increase in sales for the Kia Cerato (up 20.7%), it should be clear that buyers right now are as conscious about car prices as ever before.
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