New car sales in Australia were strong again last month, with volume up 3.4% year on year to 94,321 new passenger cars, SUVs and commercial vehicles.
Year to date sales were up 3.6%, reaching 957,153. With just two months left of 2015, new car sales are expected to once again top 1.1m for the year. Australia’s record sales year was 2013, when new car sales totalled 1,136,227.
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The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries said this year’s strong sales have been led largely by the growth of the SUV market which was up 15.9% compared to sales in the period January to October 2014.
The total SUV market increased 20.5% in October 2015, compared to October 2014. Small SUV sales, in particular, increased 37%, medium SUV sales increased 20.1% and large SUV sales increased 11.8%.
While SUV sales continue to increase, the passenger car segment is still the largest selling segment, taking 43.3% of new car sales in October 2015 and 44.9% of sales year-to-date. In the 2014 period, passenger car sales accounted for 48% of the total market.
Year-to-date, SUVs hold 35.2% of the market and light commercial vehicles hold 17.1%. Heavy commercial vehicles account for 2.7%.
In October, the Toyota Hilux was best selling vehicle, with 3,339 sales. It was followed by the Toyota Corolla (3,271), Hyundai i30 (2,669) Ford Ranger (2,597) and Mazda 3 (2,582).
Toyota was the highest selling brand in October, with 18% of the market, followed by Hyundai with 9.5%, Mazda with 9%, Holden with 8.6% and Ford with 6.5%.
