Tasmania bucks declining new car sales trend

In spite of the ongoing issues in the global automotive supply chain Tasmania bucked the national trend with a 15% year-on-year increase in new vehicle sales to 1468 units in January 2022.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) says 75,863 vehicles were sold in January 2022 which is a 4.8% decrease on the January 2021 figures.

Toyota was the market leader in January 2022 with 15,333 vehicles sold. Mazda followed with 9805. Mitsubishi took third place with 6533. Fourth place was taken by Kia with 5,520 and Hyundai came in fifth with 5,128.

Toyota’s Hilux was the highest selling model with 3591 sold. Ford’s Ranger came in second with 3245. The Mazda CX-5 took third place with 3213. Mitsubishi’s Triton was in fourth place with 2876 and the Toyota Prado came fifth with 2566 units sold in January 2022.

FCAI chief executive Tony Weber says the microprocessor shortage and the pandemic’s impact on global automotive supply chains is continuing into 2022. 

However, he says consumer interest, inquiry, and the fundamental demand for new cars in Australia remains strong.

“Manufacturers are continuing to work hard to address supply chain and production issues. We are also experiencing bottlenecks in having vehicles processed from some Australian ports. We will continue to work with all parties involved to resolve the issue,” Weber says.

New South Wales saw new vehicle sales decline by 9.8% to 23,035 units. Sales in Western Australia were down by 7.8% with 7578 vehicles sold. Queensland saw a decline of 1.3% with 16,423. Victoria decreased by 1.6% with 20,397. South Australia saw a decrease of 2.2% with 5170. The Northern Territory was down 13% with 617. Finally, the ACT was down 9.7% with 1175. 

The January 2022 market of 75,863 new vehicle sales is a decrease of 3,803 vehicle sales or -4.8% against January 2021 (79,666) vehicle sales. Both January 2022 and January 2021 had 24 selling days and this resulted in a decrease of 158.5 vehicle sales per day.

Toyota was the market leader in January, followed by Mazda and Mitsubishi. Toyota led Mazda with a margin of 5,528 vehicle sales and 7.3 market share points.

The passenger vehicle market is down by 2853 vehicle sales (-15.3%) over the same month last year; the sports utility market is down by 1947 vehicle sales (-4.7%); the light commercial market is up by 774 vehicle sales (4.4%) and the heavy commercial vehicle Market is up by 223 vehicle sales (10.9%) versus January 2021.