November 8^th, 1999                                              

VFACTS – Holden retains the YTD lead
by Gary Warner

Australia’s new vehicle market last month continued its lacklustre performance, with sales rising marginally over the September result but still trailing the figures for October 1998.

The industry's official retail report VFACTS, released today by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, shows the October 1999 total of new vehicle sales as 61,256, an increase of 1,456 (2.4%) on the September result of 59,800.

But the October 1999 market was down by 4,327 vehicles (or -6.6%) on the October 1998 total of 65,583 vehicles.

Year-to-date, the 1999 tally of 644,069 vehicles is running below the same period in 1998 by 3.3% or 21,761 sales. However, the FCAI is maintaining its forecast total for 1999 at 760,000 vehicles.

Pre-Christmas sales might yet enable the market to attain that forecast if they can average 57,965 vehicles per month.

As expected, the Passenger Vehicle market continued to decline as potential buyers hesitate amidst confusion over the likely effect of the forthcoming Goods and Services Tax. Many remain unconvinced that used car trade-in values will fall by an amount similar to the expected decline in new vehicle prices.

Passenger vehicle sales fell by 6,155 vehicles (-12.7%) over the same month last year, while the Light Truck market increased by 10.9% and the Heavy Commercial Vehicle market rose by 7.6% over October `98.

Holden was overall market leader again in October, followed by Toyota and Ford.

And the top spot in year-to-date terms was secured for the second month running by Holden, which extended its lead over Toyota to a margin of 2,452 vehicle sales, or 0.4 market share points.

Passenger market slows down further
Looking at the Passenger Vehicle market in more detail, the only segment to record an increase YTD was Prestige Car, which was up by 646 units (2.8%).

The biggest decline occurred in Light Car, which fell by 14,167 units (-28.6%), while Upper Medium Car was down 9,073 (-5.1%).

Other falls were Medium Car segment, down 5,376 (-12.3%); Small Car down 3,508 (-2.2%); Sports Car down 1,619 (-21.1%); People Movers down 184 (-3.1%) and Luxury Cars, down 17 (-0.1%).

Commodore’s birthday lead
In the closely watched Upper Medium Car segment, Holden Commodore sold 7,032 units to capture 42.9 percent market share.

Coming in the month that marked Commodore’s 21^st birthday, that further reinforced its lead over Ford Falcon, which sold 5,010 units for 30.6 percent of the segment. Running third was Mitsubishi Magna/Verada V6 on 2,235 sales for 13.3 percent share, followed by Toyota Camry/Vienta V6 with 1,820 units for 11.1 percent.

A new mover in People Movers
October saw an outstanding result in the People Mover segment for Kia’s freshly arrived V6 Carnival, which possibly exceeded even Kia’s own hopes by selling 153 units for an impressive 22.9 percent share.

That saw the new chum outdo Toyota Tarago’s 147 units (22.0%) and the Mazda MPV’s 96 units (14.3%).

Fast Luxury sells fast
Repeating its debut performance in September, the Honda S2000 sportscar again dominated the Luxury Car segment, in which it finds itself owing to its $70k pricetag.

With 165 units sold in October, S2000 secured a segment-leading 10.1 percent share to outdo the BMW 3-Series Coupe’s 137 (8.4%) and the Mercedes-Benz E-Class on 131 (8.1%).

Other success stories
There are probably some extra celebrations at Honda, with its CR-V 4WD becoming the top-selling all-terrain wagon while the revamped Integra topped the Sports Car segment.

And at Volvo, where sales have defied the trend and are now running 20 percent up on last year. Volvo management now would be in no doubt as to the success of its move to set prices at "GST-reduced" levels in anticipation of the new tax.