In what is seen as a worrying signs for vehicle dealer, short term car buying intentions have fallen further.
An estimated 589,000 Australians now intend to buy a new car in the next 12 months – a decline of 37,000 vehicles since the July 2012 figure of 626,000 – which has fallen below the long-term average of 616,000.
“Despite another strong month in new vehicle sales for August, a declining short term intention result does not bode particularly well for the final few months of the year,” says Norman Morris, industry communications director of Roy Morgan Research, who conducted the survey.
“It will be up to manufacturers to ensure sales do not decline over the remainder of 2012,” he adds.
“In terms of which volume segments are driving the overall decline in short term car buying intentions, the number of people in the market for a ‘medium, under $60K’ vehicle has almost halved since May.
“The ‘large, under $70K’ segment continues its long term decline with only 8.1% of the volume of short term intentions.
“The total passenger vehicle category, in terms of car buying intentions, is down by almost 100,000 units since May this year, with only one segment showing any positive signs,” says Morris.
“The ‘sports under $80K’ segment has more than doubled over the last three months, with almost all the gains attributed to the recently introduced Toyota 86 & Subaru BRZ.”
According to the latest Roy Morgan ‘leading indicators’ report for August 2012, an estimated 2,206,000 Australians (excluding fleet, government & rental buyers) are intending to buy a new car in the next four years. This is down on the July result of 2,253,000 but remains well above the long-term average of 2,082,000. These results come from the Roy Morgan ‘single source’ survey of over 50,000 interviews annually.
“While the four year intention is still well above the long-term average, the 12 month intention has continued its recent decline, reporting the lowest figure since September 2010,” says Morris.
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