The May sales results for the new car market in Australia are out and it’s been yet another record month for the motoring industry.
89,218 passenger cars, SUVs and commercial vehicles were sold in May … an increase of 18.3% (13,777 vehicles) on the same month in 2009. The previous monthly record for May was set in 2008 when 88,640 vehicles were sold.
Once again the SUV segment of the market saw the biggest number of sales with an increase of 28.9% but all segments … including heavy commercials … saw an increase.
Toyota held on to top position with a 20% share of the market while Holden retained second spot with 12.8% and Ford with 10.1%.
In the premium segment BMW recorded the strongest growth with an increase in sales of 28% and Mercedes also did well.
Suzuki is also feeling good about its May sales and managed to sell 244 of its new Kizashi model during the last 20 days of the month.
Mazda had a good month too with 6,928 new passenger and light commercial vehicle sales. Their Mazda6 was the top-selling medium import with 906 sales during May … 500 more than their nearest competitor.
Toyota sold 17,832 vehicles in May and the the top sellers were Camry, RAV4, Prado, LandCruiser 200 Series, HiLux 4×2, HiLux 4×4, HiAce van and HiAce bus.
Hyundai also had a great month posting its best ever May sales figures since it first entered the Australian market back in 1986. Hyundai sold a total of 6,378 of which 1,957 were their light car … the Getz. With a new light car hitting the market in July it will be interesting to see if Hyundai’s light car sales slip.
As usual the Holden Commodore can claim the title of Australia’s best selling car and Captiva did very well for Holden too.
So it was a top month with lots of happy national sales managers and this month could be even better. A number of industry watchers are suggesting that 2010 could the year when the industry sees another one million sales in a financial year.