Car Sales Statistics Australia

Report Highlights

• There are approximately 1,000,000 new car sales in Australia every year.
• There was an increase of 13.5% in car sales in December 2020 as compared to the previous year.
• Sports utility vehicles account for about half of the cars sold in Australia.
• Conventional passenger cars account for 24%, while light vehicles account for 22% of the total market share.
• 85% of Australian households own a car, with most of them purchasing one after diverting the money they were to spend on leisure holidays.

Car sales over the years

• More than 8 million cars were sold in Australia between 2010 and 2017.
• The figures of sales have risen constantly between 2011 and 2018 after which they dropped to 1.06 million in 2019.
• 2020 had the lowest car sales, failing to hit the million mark (0.917 million).
• Predictions suggest that sales in 2021 will surpass the million mark again. This seems likely, with over 79,000 sales in January alone, the highest for that month since 2012.
• Used cars also form a significant part of the sales in Australia, with the average age of an Australian car being slightly over ten years.

Hybrid & Electric Car Sales Statistics

• Electric cars continue to penetrate the market in Australia and account for a measly 0.7% of new car sales in Australia.
• The numbers of units sold remain lower when compared to internal combustion engine vehicles.
• The numbers of EV sales have been slowly rising as more people adopt the green movement. 49 vehicles EVs were sold in 2011, 253 in 2012,293 in 2013, 1322 in 2014, 1771 in 2015, 1369 in 2016, 2287 in 2017. This number dropped to 2216 in 2018.
• The sale of electric cars increased by 69% between December 2019 and December 2020.
• 2217 EVs were sold in the first half of 2021.
• Victoria was the lead state in the number of EVs purchased in the six years from 2011- 2017 with 1324 vehicles sold, followed by New South Wales with 1238 vehicles.
• The number of pure electric vehicles rose 16% from 2019 to 2020. On the other hand, hybrid vehicles rose by 94% within the same time period.
• 85% of hybrid vehicles sold in Australia were Toyota.
• As of 2021, Tesla occupies 65% of the electric vehicle market in NSW, with sales doubling per month in comparison to the previous year.
• Renault Zoe sold 48 cars in 2018, while Jaguar sold 47 cars in the same period.
• Electric vehicles had a 0.004% share in market car sales in 2011, 0.023% in 2012, 0.026% in 2013, 0.12% in 2014, 0.15% in 2015, 0.12% in 2016, 0.19% in 2017, 0.3% in 2018 and 0.6% in 2019.
• 30% of Aussies say they would easily take up the electric car option if it had a well-established support and infrastructure. There are approximately 2,500 vehicle charging stations in Australia.

Car Sales by Make

• In the year 2020, Toyota led in the number of cars sold in Australia with 204,000 units sold.
• Mazda followed with 85000 units, Hyundai with 64000, Ford and Mitsubishi with 59,000 and 58,000 respectively.
• Kia sold 56,000 units while Volkswagen and Nissan sold 39,000 and 38,000 units respectively.
• Subaru sold 31,000 units while Mercedes Benz sold 29,000 units replacing Honda and Holden in the top 10 brands sold.
• In the later months of 2020, Isuzu joined the top 10 car brands sold in Australia with a 29. 1% increase from the previous year.
• Just before the pandemic, BMW was the top-selling brand selling list with 2000 units sold but lost its spot to others.

Car Sales by Model

• Seven of the top-selling models in Australia last year were either light commercial vehicles or sports utility vehicles. The former claimed 22.4% of the market share, which was down 9% from 2019.
• The Aussie market has slowly drifted away from passenger cars with a drop in market share of 29% to 24.2% in just one year.
• The Toyota Hilux was the best-selling car in Australia, with over 45,00 units sold.
• Following was the Ford Ranger with 40,000 sales.
• Toyota vehicles continued dominating the list with the next three cars on the list being Toyota brands; RAV4 with 38,537 units sold, corolla with 25,882 units sold and the Toyota Land cruiser with 25,132 units sold.
• Mazda CX-5 sold over 21,000 units despite being a new entrant in the top sold cars list.
• Hyundai i30 sold 20,000 units, whereas Mitsubishi Triton had sales of 18,000. Toyota Prado also sold approximately 18,000 units but a little less than the aforementioned.
• The Kia Cerato closed the top ten list with 17,559 units sold.
• All the models on the list had sold more in 2020 than in the previous year, except for Toyota Corolla, which had a 9.4 % drop.
• As of early 2021, Audi sales were down 11.8%, Land Rover sales down 23.1%, BMW down 2.4%, Mercedes with a drop of 13%, while Lexus sales dropped 0.2%.

Car Sales according to Segment

• Mazda-CX 3 was the leading light SUV seller in 2020 with 1333 units sold, ahead of Toyota Yaris Cross and VW T-Cross with 517 and 440 units sold respectively.
• Medium SUVs numbers were also high, starting with RAV4 having 3542 units sold, CX 5 sold 2060 units and X-trail sold 1822 units.
• In the large SUVs segment, Toyota Prado sold 2500 units, whereas Kia Sorento sold 739.
• Toyota Hilux was the leading LUV sold in 2020 with 4453 units, followed by the Ford ranger with 3875 units, whereas Isuzu D-max sold 1775 vehicles.
• For sports cars, the Ford Mustang was the leading model with 334 units sold followed by the Mercedes C-class Coupe with 153 units.
• The more expensive brands costing more than 200k sold fewer units, with Ferrari Coupe selling 16 units, Porsche 911 selling 30 units, whereas only nine Bentley Coupes got sold.
• Toyota Hiace sold the leading units, 1382 among vans, followed by the Hyundai Iload.

Sources

1. Australia – Flash report, Sales volume, 2019
2. Toyota dominates Australia’s 2020 new car sales figures
3. Australian car market: Car sales, statistics and figures
4. VFACTS: Australia’s new vehicle sales at their lowest since 2003
5. Car Sales Figures And Statistics In Australia
6. Volume of motor vehicle sales in Australia in 2019, by segment
7. Australia New Vehicles Sales
8. Datium Insights – Car Sales
9. Australian Car Sales Statistics 2019
10. Electric car sales take off in Australia, with Tesla leading the way
11. Sales of electric cars triple in 2019
12. State of Electric Vehicles in Australia