VFACTS: Ford, Toyota avoid July blues

FORD swam against the tide to achieve a 20 per cent jump in July sales, even as the Australian new-vehicle market retreated 1.1 per cent after a mega June result.

Market leader Toyota also kicked off the new financial year in positive territory, up 3.7 per cent to 17,465 sales last month for its best July in four years, official VFACTS figures show.

However, rivals Mazda, Hyundai and Holden all recorded year-on-year sales falls, mainly because stocks of some of their biggest sellers were in short supply after a record June when industry sales soared to a whopping 128,569 vehicles on the back of mass discounting.

Hyundai’s i30 small car – the best-selling vehicle in Australia in June with 6432 sales – was down 19.4 per cent July-to-July, to 2216 units, while Mazda’s best-selling model, the Mazda3, dipped 46.9 per cent, to just 1501 units.

The Mazda3 shortage was compounded by the July changeover to a new facelifted version that arrived in showrooms in the month.

GoAuto understands that some would-be Mazda3 buyers last month opted instead for the CX-3 that was readily available, pushing the baby of the Mazda SUV range into the top 10 of Australia’s best sellers.

Ford’s locally developed Ranger ute chalked up its best July sales, combining with the Mustang sportscar to continue the Blue Oval’s sales renaissance this year.

Ford sold 2874 Rangers for the month, up 42 per cent on July last year. The Thai-built light truck accounted for more than 40 per cent of all Ford sales that rose 20 per cent to 6894 units last month to place Ford in fifth place behind Toyota, Mazda, Hyundai and Holden.

The sold-out Mustang achieved 619 registrations – all the deliveries arriving from North America in that month – to continue its reign as Australia’s best-selling sportscar. It even out-sold Ford’s light car, the Fiesta, by more than two to one.

Falcon Ute lovers also descended on showrooms to snap up 275 vehicles in July – up 22 per cent on the July 2015 – just as Ford was calling last drinks on production of the iconic light truck.

Arch rival Holden’s struggle continues, with a 10.4 per cent sales decline to 7071 sales in July.

Commodore sales were down 7.7 per cent, while Holden’s other locally built car, the Cruze, fell 12.3 per cent, to 1069 units.

So far this year, Holden sales are down 7.6 per cent – the worst of all the major players. Its YTD market share has slipped to 8.0 per cent, while Hyundai’s has eased ahead, to 9.0 per cent.

South Korea’s Kia kept the pot boiling last month, notching up a July record of 3555 vehicles – a jump of 30.5 per cent over the same month last year.

Big contributors to this score were the Cerato small car, Sorrento large SUV and Sportage medium SUV, all of which enjoyed big increases in volume.

Mitsubishi (5412) and Nissan (5304) also carved out sales increases in July, as did Subaru (3356), however, Volkswagen spun the wheels with its sales dipping 14.6 per cent to 4193 units.

The top-selling car in Australia last month was Toyota’s Corolla (3427), ahead of Toyota stablemate HiLux (3136) and Ford Ranger (2874).

Toyota’s locally built Camry also made it into the top 10 with 2172 sales, helping to keep Toyota 1.1 per cent ahead of last year’s year-to-date sales pace.

Toyota Australia executive director of sales and marketing Tony Cramb said Toyota’s July results showed the company and its dealers had bucked the industry trend of focusing on June end-of-financial-year sales at the expense of July.

“A consistent approach to managing our business and focusing on our customers has enabled Toyota to achieve a healthy July-on-July sales increase on top of a robust market-leading result in June,” Mr Cramb said.

“As a result, Toyota has stood out by selling almost 40,000 vehicles over the past two months, while also achieving an appreciable gain in market share for July.”

In July, Mazda had the top two best-selling SUVs, the CX-5 (1933) and CX-3 (1744).

SUVs and light commercial vehicles continued to drive the market, up 3.5 and 8.5 per cent respectively, but an 8.2 per cent decline in passenger car sales pulled the July market into the red, down 1.1 per cent on July last year, to 91,331 units.

However, the year-to-date market is still up 2.8 per cent on the first seven months of 2015, and with fresh stocks of big sellers such as the Mazda3 already arriving in showrooms, no one is panicking.

Top 10 selling brands July 2016

Brand	Sales	Variance %
Toyota	17,465	+3.7
Mazda	8460	-9.6
Hyundai	7603	-10.7
Holden	7071	-10.4
Ford	6894	+20.0
Mitsubishi	5412	+4.3
Nissan	5304	+7.4
Volkswagen	4193	-14.6
Kia	3555	+30.5
Subaru	3356	+0.1

Top 10 selling models July 2016

Model	Sales
Toyota Corolla	3427
Toyota HiLux	3136
Ford Ranger	2874
Hyundai i30	2216
Toyota Camry	2172
Mazda CX-5	1933
Holden Commodore	1874
Toyota RAV4	1825
Toyota Landcruiser	1767
Mazda CX-3	1744