Australia’s new vehicle market has displayed another easing of activity with the release today of official sales figures for September.

Most of the decline in demand is attributed to buyers postponing their decisions amid confusion over what actual effect the Goods & Services Tax will have on car prices. The catch, however, is that those waiting for prices to fall after introduction of the GST will probably also see their trade-ins lose value.

Holden was market leader in September, followed by Ford and Toyota.

And in what increasingly seems like an action replay of 1998, Holden also regained the top spot in year-to-date terms from Toyota.

Holden recorded 12,362 total sales to top Toyota for the month and the year, and now leads by 1,204 vehicle sales, or 0.2 market share points.

Holden’s total volume of 112,212 year-to-date is running within 0.8 per cent of last year’s record figures, while total market share of 19.3 per cent is Holden’s best September year-to-date since 1996.

Highlights of the September results for Holden included Commodore’s 25^th successive month leading rival Falcon (7,346 versus 6,041 units), the continued acceptance of new model Statesman/Caprice; Holden’s small car range best year-to-date sales for the decade, featuring Astra and Vectra with best-ever September sales, and Isuzu trucks highest sales on record.

The year-to-date 1999 total market of 582,823 vehicles is now running below the same period in 1998 by 2.9% or 17,424 vehicles. But despite the downturn in sales, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries is maintaining its forecast total for 1999 at 760,000 vehicles.

September’s volume of 59,800 new vehicles was a reduction of 2,575 (-4.1%) on August (62,375 vehicles), and was down by 4,887 vehicles or -7.6% on the September 1998 total of 64,687 vehicles.

For those obsessed by detail, September 1999 had the same number of selling days as September `98, which represents a reduction of 188.7 vehicles per day.

All passenger segments were down on the corresponding YTD period last year with the exception of Prestige Car, which is up by 573 units (2.7%) Possibly also victims of the GST confusion were Light Truck, which fell by 126 vehicles (-0.8%), and Heavy Commercial Vehicle which fell by 255 (-14.4%) over September `98.

Category winners
In Light Passenger Car, Ford Festiva with 1080 sales snared 43 percent of this segment, a clear lead over second-placed Holden Barina with 361 deliveries and 14.4 percent of the segment.

Small Passenger car saw Nissan Pulsar take the lead with 2345 sales to take 18.2 percent of this most hotly contested segment in which no less than 25 different models vie for attention.

Toyota Corolla was second with 1413 deliveries (11%), followed by Hyundai Excel on 1206 deliveries (9.4%).

Medium Passenger saw Holden’s 4 cylinder Vectra take a stranglehold with sales of 746 for a 14.8% share, followed by Hyundai’s 4 cylinder Sonata with 353 sales (7.5%).

Upper Medium Passenger, despite having a total of ten competing models, remains a battle of two between Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon.

Commodore took the laurels yet again with 7346 deliveries for 42.9 percent of the market, followed by Falcon which sold 6041 to secure 35.3 percent market share.

Third was Mitsubishi’s Magna V6 with1870 units sold for 10.9 percent, followed by Toyota’s V6 Camry on 1148 sales for 6.7 percent.

In the People Mover segment, Toyota Tarago sold 107 units for 18.6 percent share, closely followed by Mazda MPV with 102 deliveries for 17.8 percent.

Sportscar saw Mazda MX5 hold the top spot with 93 sales (18.5%), followed by Honda Prelude with 88 sales (17.5%) and Hyundai Coupe (84 sales, 16.7%). Although the recently released Honda S2000 is undeniably a sportscar, it finds itself in the Luxury segment, where its 140 sales gave it a segment-leading 8.8 percent.