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Utes dominated the sales charts in October as SUV sales slid.
While the month of September belonged to SUVs, October has crowned the humble workhorse ute as Australia's favourite car.
The Toyota HiLux was the highest selling vehicle throughout October, according to data released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries today, with 3352 units sold.
This brings the HiLux to the top of the charts for 2016 with total sales for the year up to 34,179,just pipping its stable mate the Toyota Corolla which has total sales of 34,158.
Close on its heels was it arch-rival the Ford Ranger with 3220 sales for last month, elevating it fourth spot on the best selling vehicles of 2016.
Overall the light commercial segment - which also includes vans - is up 10.1 per cent on last year, which makes it the highest growth market in Australia.
While SUVs sales slid compared to its bumper September figures - an 8 per cent decrease - the segment still enjoyed an 4.9 per cent increase over the same month last year and total sales up 9.4 per cent on 2015.
SUV sales were highlighted by strong performances by the Hyundai Tucson and Nissan X-Trail, which held the ninth and tenth position for top sellers in October.
The Mazda CX-5 had the biggest fall from grace in October dropping from 2662 sales in September to 1612 for October as the Japanese car maker prepares for the arrival of a new model.
Passenger car sales were lead by the usual players - the Toyota Corolla, Hyundai i30 and Mazda3 - which held places three through five on the October sales chart.
And while these cars experience strong monthly performances it hides the fact that passenger cars sales as a whole of the market continue to drop, with sales 7.4 per cent lower than October 2015 and down a total of 6 per cent year-on-year.
October overall was a slow month for car sales, with sales down 1 per cent on last year, but the market is up 2.4 per cent on the year with the market all but assured of eclipsing last year's total sales figures of 1.5 million.
Top 10 sellers October
Toyota HiLux - 3352
Ford Ranger - 3217
Toyota Corolla - 3210
Hyundai i30 - 2718
Mazda3 - 2191
Toyota Camry - 2135
Holden Commodore - 2101
Hyundai Accent - 2009
Hyundai Tucson - 1845
Nissan X-Trail - 1655
2016 Top 10 sellers so far
Toyota HiLux - 34,179
Toyota Corolla - 34,158
Hyundai i30 - 32,396
Ford Ranger - 30,157
Mazda3 - 30,089
Holden Commodore - 21,642
Mazda CX-5 - 20,702
Toyota Camry - 18,678
Mitsubishi Triton - 18,340
Hyundai Tucson - 16,814
Top 10 marques October
Toyota - 16,348
Hyundai - 8704
Mazda - 7921
Holden - 7521
Ford - 6508
Nissan - 5543
Mitsubishi - 5227
Volkswagen - 4869
Subaru - 4140
Kia - 3543
Source: Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries
3 Comments
Come on Commodore fans time to buy one as they were out sold by the Camry again.
So it comes down to the Hooligan versus the Accountant in the form of Camry vs Commodore. The top spec Commodore has 3 times more power than the run of the mill Camry so the bean counter will play with numbers on the computer screen in the form of price changes to cover this deficit in power to make up for it in higher sales.
Kia is having a great sales year. Another couple of years and they'll be with their stablemate Hyundai in the top 5.