Volkswagen, Nissan, Hyundai and Mercedes among big-name brands to take a sales hit last month
Global production delays that have crushed the supply of new vehicles in Australia are continuing to drag down the nation’s new-car market, with leading brands including Volkswagen, Nissan, Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz suffering significant sales declines last month as a result.
As Aussie car buyers are forced to cool their heels in the face of long quoted delivery times, February proved to be another groundhog day for the industry – following January’s slump – with just 85,340 new vehicles sold across the country.
That’s a modest 1.6 per cent gain on the same month last year, when Australia was clawing its way out of the pandemic-crippled market of 2020, but represents the second-lowest February result in more than a decade (since 2011).
Putting a positive spin on the results, Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) chief executive Tony Weber said he was “pleased to see this small increase on 2021 figures” but admitted that “global supply chains for microprocessor units are still some distance from full recovery”.
Market leader Toyota held firm (+13.7%) with HiLux and RAV4 occupying the top two spots among the top-selling models in Australia – and despite Corolla falling out of the top 10 – while Mitsubishi continued its strong run of form in third position (+26.0%), just behind Mazda (+5.5%).
But the table of leading brands has a very different look about it this year after the first two months of trading as Volkswagen dropped down to 12th spot last month (-41.3%), Nissan clung on to 10th (-26.3%) and Hyundai again suffered the ignominy of deferring to Kia as the dominant Korean brand, sitting in fifth (-9.6%) while Kia was solid in fourth (+0.2%).
Mercedes-Benz also managed only 14th position last month with a worrying 55.8 per cent downturn for its passenger cars and SUVs (-23.1% for vans), giving up its luxury market leadership to BMW (+2.0%) as a variety of other premium brands also took a hit – Audi (-37.2%), Jaguar (-57.5%), Land Rover (-77.3%) and Lexus (-7.8%) among them.
For Benz, which last year was forced to omit key safety technology from some of its models due to the semi-conductor shortage, the problems are being compounded by delays with shipments arriving at Australian borders.
“Our order intake is currently outstripping supply, as the volume of Mercedes-Benz vehicles arriving in Australia continues to be affected by ongoing semi-conductor shortages,” a spokesperson said.
“On top of this, delays in logistics have held up hundreds of vehicles from customer delivery.
“New Mercedes-Benz vehicles are currently caught in a bottleneck of port congestion and quarantine inspections at the border, and a number of vessels transporting our cars have been delayed.
“We thank our customers for their patience and encourage them to contact their local Mercedes-Benz agent for the most up-to-date information on their vehicle arrival.”
That’s a line many Australians will have already heard from various brands dealing with the same problems.
Other issues at stake
As well as battling COVID-related supply issues, Ford will be forced to manage dwindling stock of its all-important Ranger as Australia’s top-selling 4×4 ute – and the second-best-selling vehicle across the nation last year – is now in run-out.
New orders for the Ford Ranger – which was outsold by both the Toyota HiLux and Mitsubishi Triton last month – are no longer being taken ahead of retooling at the Thai factory and the new-generation ute’s launch mid-year.
The Ford Everest large SUV will soon be in the same situation, with the new model shown earlier this week arriving a bit later than Ranger. Between them, the pair made up 82 per cent of the Blue Oval’s sales in Australia last year.
Across all brands, utes and SUVs again helped underpin the market’s performance last month, with double-digit growth recorded in both 4×2 and 4×4 ute segments (+10.6% and 15.7% respectively) as well as most SUV categories (+5.4% overall).
Light SUVs climbed 23.3 per cent, while the top-selling class – mid-size SUV – rose 11.1 per cent. Put all the high-riders together and they accounted for 52.7 per cent of every new vehicle sold in Australia last month, compared to 25.4 per cent for light commercials (mainly utes) and a dwindling 18.4 per cent for traditional passenger cars.
There was only one passenger car among the top 10 models in February – the Hyundai i30.
After the Toyota RAV4 and Prado, the MG ZS was again the third-best-selling SUV in Australia last month and helped the Chinese brand to seventh place overall in the standings with yet more year-on-year growth (+24.9%).
That placed it behind Ford (-2.2%), but ahead of Subaru (+19.4%), Isuzu Ute (+11.0%) and other big-name brands including Nissan, VW and Honda, the latter finishing 13th with 1408 sales (-30.2 per cent) under its new fixed-price, premium-focussed regime.
An even 600 electric cars were sold in February across all brands except Tesla, which doesn’t report its figures, compared to more than 8000 hybrid cars, 300 plug-in hybrids and 30,000 diesels (+11.6%).
At almost 44,000 units, petrol-powered cars were down 11.2 per cent but still represented one in every two vehicles sold.
Top 10 brands (2022 year to date):
- Toyota – 36,219
- Mazda – 18,587
- Mitsubishi – 14,346
- Kia – 11,401
- Hyundai – 10,777
- Ford – 9138
- MG – 7305
- Subaru – 5873
- Isuzu Ute – 5500
- Nissan – 5154
Top 10 vehicles (February 2022):
- Toyota HiLux – 4803
- Toyota RAV4 – 4454
- Mitsubishi Triton – 3811
- Ford Ranger – 3455
- Toyota Prado – 2778
- MG ZS – 1953
- Isuzu D-MAX – 1930
- Mazda CX-30 – 1819
- Hyundai i30 – 1756
- Mitsubishi Outlander – 1673
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Keyword: VFACTS February: Supply crisis still dragging down sales