VFACTS for August: car companies ride new wave

Tsunami's impact recedes and importers pull up socks to fill backlogged order bank
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Automotive industry statistician VFACTS has reported a 7.3 per cent improvement in vehicle sales for the month of August.

The 88,082 vehicles sold new in August represented a 5960-unit increase on the number sold in August of 2010. It's a telling point that the figure for last month was fully 7091 vehicle sales ahead of the figure for the month before that, July. Being the start of the new financial year — and marking the end of the previous one — July is usually a very solid month for sales. So for August to score a higher sales tally is an indicator of sorts that the industry is overcoming the supply shortage resulting from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami disaster of March. Indeed, the car companies were clearly working harder than usual in August to deliver cars long promised.

With the market 4.4 per cent down for the year to date, based on total vehicle sales of 665,309  for the period, VFACTS cite a seasonally adjusted selling rate of 0.997 million. But with a strong order bank to be filled over the remainder of the year, that may well prove conservative — and 2011 should be another million-plus year. Acting Chief Executive for the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, Steve Payne, holds strongly to this view.

“These positive figures are good news for the automotive industry in Australia, and put the industry firmly on track to achieve the one million sales target for 2011,” Payne was quoted as saying in a press release issued by the FCAI today.

“We’re continuing to see a recovery in supply from earthquake and tsunami-damaged Japan, along with stronger sales in Queensland as the state recovers from severe weather events earlier in the year,” he said.

As we reported last week, Holden's Commodore vacated top spot for the month, leaving the position of top-selling car in the country open to the Mazda3. The Mazda's performance for the month has also placed it narrowly ahead of the locally-built Commodore sedan and Sportwagon models — 28,736 for the Mazda, 28,265 for the Holden — in year to date trading.

In a press release issued this morning, Holden expressed satisfaction with the performance of both its large car and the Cruze small car — also built at the company's production facility at Elizabeth in South Australia.

“We’re continuing to make a compelling case for large cars in Australia, all three Commodore engines are now E85 compatible and we’ve just announced new fuel economy of 8.9 litres for the Omega sedan,” said the company's Director of Sales, Philip Brook.

“We couldn’t be happier with the customer acceptance of Cruze, its unique mix of style, keen pricing and fuel efficiency is drawing new customers every day.

“We’ve sold almost 10,000 Cruze sedans in the last three months, which is a significant achievement with only one body style.  We expect this story to get even better when we launch the Cruze hatch later this year.”

For its part, Mazda was very pleased with its record-breaking result in August. The importer moved 9138 cars, blitzing the previous high point of 8850 in September last year.

“This is an outstanding result and one which we’re obviously very satisfied with” said Mazda MD, Doug Dickson.

“Credit must go to our dedicated dealer network which continues to take advantage of every opportunity presented to them including our recent M-Day special offers. While some market challenges remain, our dealers have demonstrated their ability to meet those challenges and set us up for a very strong end to the year.”

The top ten selling car companies for the year to date were: Toyota (113,993), Holden (84,923), Ford (61,334), Mazda (59,918), Hyundai (57,621), Nissan (44,767), Mitsubishi (41,309), Volkswagen (27,746), Subaru (24,371) and Honda (21,645). As was the case the previous month, all ten companies held their position on the ladder; Mazda and Nissan shaking off any residual effects of the tsunami and increasing their sales rate over the same period in 2010. Hyundai and Volkswagen were the only two non-japanese brands in the top ten to see their sales improve for 2011 so far. The six remaining companies have lost ground overall.

The top ten selling cars for the month were: Mazda3 (4234), Holden Commodore (3682), Holden Cruze (3234), Toyota Corolla (3100), Toyota Hilux (2823), Hyundai i30 (2418), Mazda2 (1966), Ford Falcon (1665), Ford Territory (1625), Toyota Camry (1607).

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