The month of March 2014 has been an exciting time for the Australian automobile market. In a month of dipping sales figures, a total of 97,267 cars were purchased and some interesting trends have emerged. The VFACTS numbers showed that large cars were a popular choice with this segment up by 24.5% and large SUVs was up 9.7% as compared to March 2013. On the other hand, small car segment saw a decline of 4% as against March 2013 figures. Light passenger cars too fell 10.9% as against previous year.
VFACTS also released the list of regions in Australia that showed good performance. South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania showed positive growth as compared to March 2013, while Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland and ACT registered a decline in sales from last year.
Overall Trend – Small Car segment
The Toyota Corolla bagged the top spot for total sales with a whopping 4,086 units. It was followed closely by the Mazda 3 with (3,587) and Hyundai i30 (2,372 units).
Overall Trend – Medium Car segment
The medium car segment was dominated by Toyota Camry (2,085 units), followed by Mazda 6 (593) and Ford Mondeo (384)
Overall Trend – Large Car segment
Holden Commodore (2,967) dominated the large car segment sales in March 2014. Ford Falcon (641) followed a close second with third position taken up by Toyota Aurion (263)
Overall Trend – Sports segment
Toyota again took top spot here with 397 units. Hyundai Veloster (296) and BMW Series 1 coupe (130) followed to second and third place respectively.
Overall Trend – SUV segment
The SUV category performed better than last month. The Mazda CX-5 took top honours with 1,932 units sold overall. This was followed by the Toyota RAV4 (1,888) and Subaru Forester (1,389).
Overall Trend – Across Vehicle brands
As expected, with leadership position across multiple car segments, Toyota has raced way ahead of its competitors in new car sales in Australia (18275 units), followed by Holden (9851), Mazda (9203), Hyundai (8606), and Ford (7037).
Source – http://www.fcai.com.au/news/news/all/all/353/car-sales-strong-in-march