New car sales in Australia declined 3.8% year on year in February to 86,818 units.
FCAI chief executive Tony Weber said sales fell predominantly in the light commercial vehicle segment with volume off 14.5%.
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“We believe the significant decrease in [the states of] Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria, and the sharp decline in light commercial sales, are indicative of the slowdown in mining and uncertainty around manufacturing,” Weber said.
But noted that, despite a decrease in sales of SUVs and light commercials, passenger car sales remained steady.
“Australian consumers purchased 17.4% more large passenger cars than in February 2013. They also bought 5.2% more small passenger cars and 3.1% more medium passenger cars.
“The top five sales list for February 2014 was dominated by passenger cars with three small cars and one large passenger car making the list.”
The Mazda 3 was the top selling car, with 3,969 vehicles sold. The Toyota Hilux was second (3,348), the Toyota Corolla was third (3,332), the General Motors Holden Commodore fourth (2,777) and the Hyundai i30 fifth (2,372).
Toyota was the top selling brand in February 2014, with 16,200 sales, followed by Mazda (9,171), Holden (8,697), Hyundai (7,802) and Ford (6,287).
