Sales of new motor vehicles in Australia in August 2016 continued the trend set earlier this year with an increase of 4.6% over the August 2015 figures. Year to date sales were up 3% to 784,380.
"Australians purchased 94,909 new motor vehicles in August 2016, led by strong demand for SUVs and light commercials," the chief executive of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), Tony Weber said. "Demand for SUVs and light commercials continues to drive the market with both these segments increasing sales by over 10% compared with August 2015."
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Sales of passenger vehicles declined by 4.2% in August 2016 with YTD volume down 5.5%.
"While passenger motor vehicles continue to lead the market in terms of overall volume with 41.3% of total 2016 sales, the quite discernible trend towards SUVs and light commercials continues. SUVs now account for 37.3% of the total sales year to date 2016 while in 2015 this figure was 34.8%. Similarly, with light commercials, the current market share year to date is 18.7% compared with 17.4% in 2015," Weber said.
August also saw strong growth in business sales, with sales up 21.5% over August 2015. Sales of light commercial vehicles to business customers increased by 34.4% and sales of SUVs to business were up 31.2%.
Toyota continued to lead the market with 19.7% of total sales followed by Mazda (9.8%), Holden (8.1), Ford (7.2) and Hyundai (6.9).
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By GlobalDataThe Toyota Corolla was the top selling vehicle in August 2016 with sales of 3,554, followed by the Hilux (3,311) Ford Ranger (2,964), Mazda 3 (2,818) and Toyota Camry (2,458).
