NEW vehicle sales declined again in March

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Car makers ride out a 'long' March
By Ian Porter
April 6, 2006

NEW vehicle sales declined again in March, extending the current patch of weak demand into a third month and deepening the despair of the local manufacturers.

The worst-performed sectors of the market were large cars and sport utility vehicles ? the two areas that include all locally made models.

March was an unusually "long" month, with 27 selling days, so total sales actually reached a record for March of 85,200 units. However, when calculated on a daily basis, sales were actually down 7 per cent to 3277 a day compared with the previous March, according to Vfacts registration figures released yesterday.

April will be a "short" month as it includes five weekends and, combined with a weak daily sales rate, this could produce a sharp drop in overall registrations.

Toyota again increased its lead over GM Holden and Ford in March, partly because the two American companies are more dependent on their large cars and partly because Toyota's imported models continued to dominate the light and small car sectors.

The Japanese company outsold GMH by more than 5000 vehicles ? 38 per cent ? over the month and extended its lead after three months to almost 11,000 units.

Sales of its Camry range of four and six-cylinder models have eased in line with other medium and large cars, but this was more than made up by booming demand for its Yaris and Corolla models, which lead the light and small-car sectors.

Both have joined the Camry on the top 10 sellers list, with the Corolla at number three and the Yaris at number six, one place behind the Camry, which is soon to be replaced.

Toyota director of sales and marketing Dave Buttner also cited the new RAV4, which has raced to leadership in the compact SUV sector since it was released in January.

The sick man of the industry, Mitsubishi, drew some optimism from sales of 1210 of its 380 model in March. While this was only about half the sales rates targeted when the car was launched late last year, chief executive Rob McEniry said the 20 per cent improvement over February showed the 380 was on the planned trend.

At the time of the launch, Mr McEniry said it would take a few months for the new name to establish itself in the market and that volumes would gradually rise to 2500 a month.

Mitsubishi closed its Adelaide plant for three weeks in March in order to bring inventory into line with demand and is now producing 90 380s a day. The model mix on the ground is a bit rich at present ? the VRX was the best seller in March ? and Mitsubishi is building more base models in order to meet demand at that end of the range.

The long selling month helped Ford rack up some sales records for the Fiesta and Focus cars while the rear-wheel-drive Courier light commercial range also reached record volumes thanks to the availability of a turbo-diesel engine, president Tom Gorman said.

The 50 per cent owned specialist modifier Ford Performance Vehicles also posted a record month, with 219 hot Falcons sold, lifting the total for the first three months of the year to 556 units, up 45 per cent.

PASSENGER VEHICLESSOURCE : VFACTS

March sales

Holden Commodore 5170

Ford Falcon 4345

Toyota Corolla 3680

Mazda3 2901

Toyota Camry 2790

Toyoto Yaris 2079

Ford Territory 1873

Hyundai Getz 1716

Holden Astra 1665

Honda Civic 1659

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