New car sales figures in reverse again

Photo by Engin_Akyurt on Pixabay

Sales figures for new vehicles in Australia have declined on their respective month in the previous year for the eighteenth month in a row, the latest research confirms.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries’ (FCAI) new vehicles sales figures for September show a 6.9% decline of new car sales in September 2019 compared to September 2018.

This is a decline of 6,530 vehicles.

Year-to-date (January 2019 – September), a total of 811,464 new vehicles were sold, a decrease of 69,541 vehicles, or 7.9% over the same period last year.

FCAI Chief Executive Tony Weber said these slower sales are in line with the broader economic environment in Australia.

“Of particular concern to the industry is the restrictive regulatory lending conditions currently facing consumers,” Mr Weber said.

“The question has to be asked – are these results telling us we have made it too difficult for people to finance basic purchases in today’s Australia?”

Responsible lending and access to credit – such as car loans – have been a hot topic lately, with the Treasurer himself pushing particularly hard against overly stringent lending standards.

“It’s in everyone’s interest that the aspirations of hard-working families are not collateral damage in this regulatory process,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said at a property summit last week.

“If responsible lending laws are applied too stringently, they will also negatively impact consumer behaviour.

“Clearly, the risk that the provision of credit may cause substantial hardship to some should not result in a significantly reduced ability to access credit by the vast majority of borrowers.”

Looking for a low-rate car loan? The table below displays some of the lowest fixed car loan rates on the market for new cars.

September car sales – by the numbers

Toyota was the market leader in September, followed by Mitsubishi and Mazda.

These brands made 15,166, 8,990 and 8,168 sales in September respectively.

Year-to-date, Toyota remains the market leader with 154,515 sales so far in 2019.

Rank	Car brand	Total sales YTD	Total sales September 2019
1	Toyota	154,515	15,166
2	Mazda	79,057	8,168
3	Hyundai	66,489	7,245
4	Mitsubishi	64,506	8,990
5	Ford	48,604	4,783
6	Kia	46,360	5,128
7	Nissan	38,343	4,651
8	Volkswagen	37,709	3,816
9	Holden	34,215	2,863
10	Honda	34,210	3,404

In terms of individual cars, the Toyota Hilux was (as usual) the most popular, with 3,364 individual sales in September.

This is a 22.5% fall from September last year however.

The third most popular car, the Mitsubishi Triton, led Mitsubishi’s charge up the rankings with a 61.6% increase in sales to 3,001.

Rank	Vehicle	Sep-19	Sep-18	% diff
1	Toyota Hilux	3,364	4,338	-22.5%
2	Ford Ranger	3,116	3,228	-3.5%
3	Mitsubishi Triton	3,001	1,857	61.6%
4	Hyundai i30	2,447	2,508	-2.4%
5	Mitsubishi ASX	2,419	2,138	13.1%
6	Mazda CX-5	2,335	1,506	56.4%
7	Toyota Corolla	2,219	2,917	-23.9%
8	Kia Cerato	2,022	1,574	28.5%
9	Nissan XTrail	1,769	1,908	-7.3%
10	Mitsubishi Outlander	1,731	1,404	23.3%

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Disclaimers

The entire market was not considered in selecting the above products. Rather, a cut-down portion of the market has been considered which includes retail products from at least the big four banks, the top 10 customer-owned institutions and Australia’s larger non-banks:

• The big four banks are: ANZ, CBA, NAB and Westpac
• The top 10 customer-owned Institutions are the ten largest mutual banks, credit unions and building societies in Australia, ranked by assets under management in November 2019. They are (in descending order): Credit Union Australia, Newcastle Permanent, Heritage Bank, Peoples’ Choice Credit Union, Teachers Mutual Bank, Greater Bank, IMB Bank, Beyond Bank, Bank Australia and P&N Bank.
• The larger non-bank lenders are those who (in 2020) has more than $9 billion in Australian funded loans and advances. These groups are: Resimac, Pepper, Liberty and Firstmac.

Some providers' products may not be available in all states. To be considered, the product and rate must be clearly published on the product provider's web site.

In the interests of full disclosure, Savings.com.au, Performance Drive and Loans.com.au are part of the Firstmac Group. To read about how Savings.com.au manages potential conflicts of interest, along with how we get paid, please click through onto the web site links.

*The Comparison rate is based on a $150,000 loan over 25 years. Warning: this comparison rate is true only for this example and may not include all fees and charges. Different terms, fees or other loan amounts might result in a different comparison rate.

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