Strong month for sales

The vehicle market in March was the best result ever for the month, with sales up 8% year-on-year.

The result of 105,054 sales is the largest March sales market ever recorded.

FCAI chief executive Tony Weber says the popularity of versatile SUVs and light commercial vehicles shows no signs of slowing down with sales in the SUV segment up 15.3% on March 2014 sales, and up 15.4% year-to-date.

Light commercial vehicle sales increased 10.1% compared to March 2014 sales.

“In particular, we saw private purchases of light commercial vehicles increase significantly in March 2015, with sales up 33.4 per cent,” says Weber. “The versatility of these vehicles makes them a popular choice for many Australians, providing the capacity needed for work, leisure and family activities.”

Private purchases of SUVs increased 15.6%, and private purchases of passenger cars decreased 1.9%.

Sales were strong across most of the country with sales in the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales up more than 10%, sales in Queensland up 12.1%, the Northern Territory was up 6.6%, Tasmania 7.1% and Victoria 8.5%. A slight fall of 0.4% was recorded in South Australia and a fall of 2.9% in Western Australia.

Toyota was the highest selling brand with 18.2% of the market. Toyota was followed by Mazda with 9.7%, Hyundai with 8.3%, Holden with 8.2%, and Nissan with 6.8%.

The Toyota Corolla was the top selling car in March 2015, with 4,261 vehicles sold. The Corolla was followed by the Mazda3 (3,558), Toyota Hilux (3,346), Mitsubishi Triton (2,940) and Holden Commodore (2,436).