It seems that January 2011 was an interesting month for new car sales here in Australia.
While the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries want to describe January’s sales as “robust” the actual figures show that new vehicle sales were down by 1.7 per cent compared to this time last year.
However the figures may not be anything but an anomaly because there was a “significant decrease in sales in Queensland” during January (a decrease of 12.8 percent to be precise) … and as we all know, the weather up here has not been the best.
But there are two other interesting points about these sales figures that are worth thinking about. The first is that private buyers were really into the market and sales to private individual rose by 13.6 per cent. At the same time sales of new vehicles to businesses declined during January.
If that decline continues then perhaps we should begin to worry.
The other interesting point is that Ford fell out of the top three yet again and could only manage an equal fourth spot along with Hyundai with 8.7 per cent of the market.
The top three spots were held down by Toyota with 20.1 per cent of sales; Holden with 11.4 per cent of sales and Mazda with 9.8 per cent.
Next month’s figures could be even more interesting.