VFacts June 2010

[phillyc]

What needs to be considered and can't be broken down from those figures is 'user-chooser' leases. FG has made huge strides in this area.

I have seen so many XR6 & G6E Falcon's and almost zero XT which is great.

[Gobes32]

XT is available purely to fill the base model niche. No-one would ever actually buy one. especially when XR6 is 37k drive away. But thats the beauty, user chooses do not want xt's, they want XR6's and G6E's and Ford are delivering a fantastic product to cater to that market. Common sense would suggest that there is more profit in selling those models too. It's no good trying to sell the cheapest base model, it makes much better sense to sell an XR6 at x amount of dollars but give people the impression they are getting 10k worth of extras for nothing when really they only cost the factory a third of that amount.

[Joe5619]

Originally Posted by phillyc

What needs to be considered and can't be broken down from those figures is 'user-chooser' leases. FG has made huge strides in this area.

I have seen so many XR6 & G6E Falcon's and almost zero XT which is great.

Silly Question, but dont "user-choose" leases still get fleet like diso****s??

[Gobes32]

Originally Posted by Joe5619

Silly Question, but dont "user-choose" leases still get fleet like diso****s??

Yep, but not the same discount that large businesses like Telstra receive when they agree to buy x amount of cars over three years.

[vztrt]

Private buyers save the day

http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mell...2577660009A5A4

Mixed signals in June sales figures as tradies drive out of the market
20 July 2010
By JOHN MELLOR
THE euphoria surrounding record June vehicle sales hid signs of weakness in some key sectors.

The overall sales tally of 108,772 vehicles – up 5875 units on June last year and ahead of the previous record month in June 2008 – implied the industry could achieve more than one million units in a calendar year for the third time. But the June VFACTS figures contained mixed signals.

For example, anyone hoping for strong demand from the business sector, especially in 4x2 pick-ups and vans, should not hold their breath. It is now clear that those who took advantage of the June 2009 deadline for business depreciation tax benefits are now out of the market for some years.

The good news is that, despite interest rate pressures and niggling concerns over the economic news out of Europe, Australian private car buyers were out in force, and it was their demand for new light and small passenger cars and compact and medium SUVs that created the record.

The chart shows the percentage volume difference between the June half year with the June half year in 2009 and the June performance against June 2009. A key indicator of market strength is whether the June-on-June volumes are holding as well as the half year-on-half year numbers. Where the June-on-June was weaker, demand in that segment is easing.

Four keys segments, all the domain of private buyers, drove the record June and also drove the strong first half of this year. Compact and medium SUVs as well as light and small cars experienced significant growth both in half-year-on-half-year and in June-on-June sales.

Pick-ups and cab-chassis 4x2s, which had not held their ground in the half year, were looking short of support in June with sales down 28 per cent in the June-on-June numbers. This indicates the “tradies” now have what they need and may not be back for a while.

Vans, up marginally in the half year, also had a terrible June – off 27 per cent on the previous year. In fact, in June all but two of the van entries (Citroen Berlingo and Hyundai iLoad) lost ground, with many more than 50 per cent off the pace on the previous June.

Light trucks were up on the half year but were 19 per cent behind June 2009.

Pick-ups and cab-chassis 4x4s had a good first half but here, too, there were signs of weakness in the June numbers reflecting rural buyers upgrading a year ago on the back of the tax break.

Upper large (Holden Statesman/Caprice and Chrysler 300C) was off the pace in both half year and June numbers. Other segments looking weaker in June were large, people-movers and large SUVs.

Light bus sales were up more than 30 per cent on the month, driven by a good month in Toyota HiAce buses. This resulted in a strong first half as well, although it is only a small segment.

[vztrt]

SUVs drive 2010 sales boom

http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mell...2577740008E375

This year’s new-vehicle sales surge in Australia is led not by cars but SUVs
3 August 2010
By MARTON PETTENDY
AUSTRALIA’S new-vehicle sales surge in 2010, driven by the after-effects of last year’s small business tax break and the return of private buyers to the market in recent months, has been well documented.

Drill deeper into VFACTS, however, and it’s clear that sports utility vehicles – not passenger cars – are the driving force behind the solid 16.7 per cent increase in overall industry sales at the halfway mark of this year.

Total passenger car sales were up 15.8 per cent during the first six months of 2010, which is well ahead of the 5.8 per cent increase in light commercial vehicle sales during the same period – but only about half the increase posted by SUVs (30.8 per cent).

As a proportion of total sales, the passenger car segment actually declined by about half a per cent to 57.1 per cent, while the LCV split shrunk by 1.8 per cent to 17.6 per cent.

Meantime, SUVs soared from accounting for 20 per cent of all sales in mid-2009 to comprising 22.5 per cent now – an increase in market share of about 2.5 per cent.

SUVs remain a long way away from outselling passenger cars in Australia, but a look at sales segments within each sector reveals some trends that continue to help close the gap.

In the past 12 months the compact SUV segment – the largest of Australia’s four SUV segments for a number of years – has overtaken the large-car segment, which was traditionally the largest single vehicle sales segment in Australia.

Small cars, with almost 125,000 sales so far this year, remains the biggest segment and has lifted its sales by 21.2 per cent in 2010 – but as a percentage of the total sales pie is up by just 0.9 per cent.

That’s the largest share increase of any passenger car segment in 2010, with light cars increasing their share by 0.2 per cent and people-movers remaining steady, but all other categories falling in share, including medium cars (down by 0.3 per cent), large cars and sportscars (both down 1.0 per cent).

Small cars now account for 23.4 per cent – almost a quarter – of all new vehicles sold in 2010 – while light cars increased to 13.1, large cars declined to just 9.7 per cent and medium cars fell to 7.7 per cent.

Over in SUV land, the compact crossover sales mix posted the most growth of any segment in 2010, increasing by 1.3 per cent to represent 10.4 per cent of all vehicles sold this year.

Put in other terms, compact SUV sales soared by 33.0 per cent this year to about 55,000, while sales of large cars rose by only 5.4 per cent, to about 51,000.

Similarly, more Australians bought medium SUVs this year than medium cars, with about 41,000 mid-size cars sold (up 12.6 per cent) versus about 46,500 mid-size SUVs – up 33.2 per cent, which was the largest sales increase of any segment so far this year.

As a proportion of total sales, medium SUVs now account for 8.7 per cent of all sales – up 1.1 per cent on the same time last year – while the medium car sales mix has dropped by 1.1 per cent to 8.7 per cent.

While 4x4 utes remain steady, 4x2 utes like the Commodore and Falcon Ute now account for just 5.8 per cent of total sales – down from 7.3 per cent on July 31, 2009.

In order of sales, at the halfway mark of 2010 – in which no fewer than 531,168 vehicles have been sold - small cars lead the way on 124,358, followed by light cars (69,755), compact SUVs (55,139), large cars (51,349), 4x4 utes (48,659), medium SUVs (46,446) and medium cars (41,041).

Year-to-date, although Toyota’s RAV4 (up 12.3 per cent YTD) pegged back some of the Subaru’s Forester’s (down 2.0 per cent) lead in the compact SUV race in June and Toyota’s Prado (up 44 per cent) remains the top-selling medium SUV, Holden’s Captiva (up 67 per cent) overhauled Toyota’s Kluger (up 8.9 per cent) for second.

Also up significantly on the back of popular new front-wheel drive variants are the Mazda CX-7 (up 160.3 per cent YTD), Nissan Dualis (up 278.8 per cent) and Hyundai’s new-for-2010 ix35.

Mitsubishi predicts new sub-$30,000 versions of compact SUVs like its own Outlander, which will be available in 2WD guise from next month, to increase from about 24,000 currently (up from 6000 five years ago) to 100,000 in the next five years.