Toyota Australia’s sales chief thinks the new car market ‘down under’ is poised to improve through the rest of 2009, after hitting the bottom in April.
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Australian sales of passenger cars, SUVs and commercial vehicles fell 23.9% year on year to 63,965 units, according to official VFACTS data released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) this week.
Toyota;s senior executive director sales and marketing, David Buttner, said customer orders and dealer purchases indicated a better result in May.
“We expect a pick-up in sales for May and June, followed by a market that will be stronger in the second half of the year than in the first six months,” he said.
Toyota last month was market leader by more than 5,200 sales over its nearest rival, GM’s Holden.
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By GlobalDataHe said April had fewer selling days than the same month last year due to the Easter break, school holidays and Anzac Day [a public holiday to commemorate war dead] falling on a Saturday – usually the busiest day of the week for car dealers.
Toyota’s HiLux was the second best-selling vehicle in Australia last month and the company also had two of the six most popular passenger cars (Corolla and Yaris) and three of the top four SUVs (Kluger, RAV4 and Prado).
“The year-on-year comparison for Toyota is misleading because our sales figures in the same period last year were artificially high,” Buttner said.
“Not only were we surfing the crest of all-time record sales, we also had a huge carry-over of orders each month that was on top of the underlying demand.
“Even as late as September, we were still delivering vehicles ordered in the first half of the year when the economy was booming.
“Since October-November, we have successfully managed our stock position to reflect lower demand with the result that confidence among our dealers is strong.
“As a result, we have not engaged in distress selling and we have refused to take actions that would savage the resale values of our customers’ vehicles.
“In fact, in the long-term interests of Toyota’s brand and our customers, we did not pursue fleet deals we believe were struck at unsustainable prices.
“We are now in a strong position to be aggressive but responsible with our merchandising, starting with the ‘Toyota Means Business’ promotion in May-June,” he added.
