VFACTS: Strong start to 2023

AUSTRALIAN new car sales are off to a strong start in 2023 with 9010 more units sold across the month than in January 2022.

Overall, a total of 84,873 new vehicles were sold over 24 selling days (the same as in 2022), an increase of 11.9 per cent against the same time last year and an impressive increase of 375.4 vehicle sales per day.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the SUV market continues its upward trajectory, January sales figures showing 7101 SUVs were sold over the month, an increase of 17.9 per cent while passenger car sales grew by 865 units (+5.5 per cent) over the same period.

Australia’s light commercial vehicle (LCV) market grew slightly over January, up by 287 vehicle sales or 1.6 per cent, while the heavy commercial vehicle (HCV) market grew strongly with 757 sales representing a 33.3 per cent uptick over the same time in the previous calendar year.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) said consumer preference for larger vehicles is set to continue, with January sales of SUVs (46,698) and LCVs (18,546) accounting for 76.9 per cent of all vehicles sold.

Toyota held its position as the number-one importer in January, with a 3956 unit lead representative of a 4.6 per cent market share advantage over second-placed Mazda.

Overall Toyota market share was 15.7 per cent from 13,363 deliveries over the month against Mazda’s 9407. Ford ranked in third place with 6624 unit sales ahead of Kia (6006 units) and Hyundai (5809).

Interestingly, the Ford Ranger was the highest selling model in January with 4749 deliveries, outpacing the Toyota HiLux’s 4131 unit sales.

The Tesla Model 3 placed third with 2927 deliveries – ahead of the Mazda CX-3 (2417) and Mazda CX-5 (2189) – marking the second time an all-electric model has placed so highly after Tesla’s Model Y placed third by notching up 4359 units last September.

In addition, the MG ZS, which includes a battery electric variant, and the Mitsubishi Outlander, which includes a plug-in hybrid electric variant, were also ranked in the top 10 for January.

VFACTS figures show sales of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) accounted for 12.3 per cent (10,426 units) of January’s sales tally, BEVs alone taking a 5.7 per cent slice of the action (4852 units).

Tesla’s results were sufficient to earn it a top-10 spot in the January sales charts with 3313 deliveries overall and a 3.9 per cent market share, placing it just behind Subaru (3601 units and 4.2 per cent share) and ahead of Isuzu Ute (2671 units and 3.1 per cent share).

State-by-state, all regions were up across January, with the Australian Capital Territory increasing most.

The ACT sold 1394 vehicles across the first month of the year (+18.6 per cent) ahead of New South Wales in percentage growth (26,484 units and +15.0 per cent), Queensland (18,766 and +14.3 per cent), South Australia (5786 and +11.9 per cent), the Northern Territory (665 and +7.8 per cent), Victoria (22,367 and 9.7 per cent), Western Australia (7901 and +4.3 per cent) and Tasmania (1510 and 2.9 per cent).

According to the FCAI, sales were up across all buyer types in January with private sales growing 8.6 per cent, business sales 13.6 per cent, government sales 0.5 per cent and rental fleet sales a significant 31.9 per cent.

“This data is the best January result since 2018 and shows that the industry is continuing to recover following years of supply chain disruption and delay,” said FCAI chief executive Tony Weber.

Top 10 vehicle sales by make (January 2023):

Top 10 vehicle sales by model (January 2023):

State-by-state (January 2023):