Sales of passenger cars, SUVs and commercial vehicles in Australia were strong in July 2013, totalling 90,235, yet lower than expected.
Releasing the July 2013 VFACTS data, Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) chief executive Tony Weber said it was disappointing that, even after only half a month, sales were being impacted by the government’s FBT announcement.
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“The full impact, however, will take some time to completely work its way through the sales figures,” he said.
“Anyone looking at the July figures needs to put them in context and look at what the new car market was doing before the FBT announcement. Even though sales were at an all-time high for a July, we had good reason to expect them to be even higher given our members’ tracking of the market in the first half of the month.”
The latest VFACTS data showed year to date sales were 4.6% higher than in the same period last year. If the Government’s recent change to FBT on cars is legislated, the FCAI expects this growth will decline during the rest of 2013 and into 2014.
The Toyota Corolla was the top selling vehicle last month with 3,945 sold. The Mazda 3 was second (3,464) followed by last month’s best seller, the Toyota Hilux (2,971), and the updated Holden Commodore (2,827). The Holden Cruze was fifth with 2,467 sales.
Sales of locally manufactured vehicles were up 4.8% compared to July 2012.
Overall, Toyota held top position in July with 17,433 vehicle sales ahead of Holden with 10,137, Mazda with 8,525, Hyundai with 8,009 and Ford with 6,733.
