Car sales slowdown, dropping by 7.4%

Written by 
Bill Tsouvalas
Bill Tsouvalas is the managing director and a key company spokesperson at Savvy. As a personal finance expert, he often shares his insights on a range of topics, being featured on leading news outlets including News Corp publications such as the Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun, Fairfax Media publications such as the Australian Financial Review, the Seven Network and more. Bill has over 15 years of experience working in the finance industry and founded Savvy in 2010 with a vision to provide affordable and accessible finance options to all Australians. He has built Savvy from a small asset finance brokerage into a financial comparison website which now attracts close to 2 million Aussies per year and was included in the BRW’s Fast 100 in 2015 as one of the fastest-growing companies in the country. He’s passionate about helping Australians make financially savvy decisions and reviews content across the brand to ensure its accuracy. You can follow Bill on LinkedIn.
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, updated on June 13th, 2023       

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The Australian car market has continued to experience a slump in car sales for 8 consecutive months with sales dipping to 7.4%. A total of 93,860 car sales were recorded for the month of November which is a drop from 101,365 car sales which were achieved at the same time last year. Here is what you need to know when it comes to the latest in car sale trends.

Passenger car sales take the biggest hit

The continued trend in car sales dropping has caused passenger car sales to take a major hit dropping to 20.8% in November and 15.0% for year-on-year sales. Car experts are unsure whether this dip will continue into 2019 or if it’s just a temporary kink in sales. It could also be due to the current economic conditions that many Aussies find themselves facing, making them cautious when it comes to purchasing new cars. This is a considerable dip when compared to other vehicles such as SUV sales that dropped by 1.9%, commercial vehicles by 4.2%, and heavy commercial vehicles by 2.7%.

NSW experiences the highest car sales plunge when compared to other states

Sales have gradually plummeted across all states and territories except for Tasmania. Most states experienced a decline of up to 7%, but NSW took the biggest plunge with car sales down by 11.6%.

Toyota holds the position of top selling brand

When it comes to the top-selling brand Toyota continues to hold its rank as the top selling brand with 18,271 sales followed by Mazda with 8,905 sales, and Hyundai closing the top three selling brands with 7,869 sales. Holden experienced the largest drop in sales when it comes to brands with a 35.0% drop followed by Ford dipping to 12.0% and Volkswagen dropping to 12.1%. Despite the decrease in sales of 2.8%, Toyota still maintained sales when compared to other car brands on the market.

Ford may be ranked as fifth when it comes to the top selling brands, but it managed to spring a surprise on Holden by overtaking it for the first time in 21 years with 5, 519. Ford managed to pull a fast one on Holden when it came to the year-to-date sales in February. While Ford’s sales drop to 12.0%, Holden dropped to 35.0% in November.

Top selling models in November

When it comes to the top-selling models the Toyota Hilux remained the top-selling model with 4,671 sales followed by Ford Ranger at 3,469, and Toyota Corolla 2,659 as the top three selling brands. The Hyundai Tucson trailed at the end of the top selling models with 1,632 sales.

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