The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released new motor vehicle sales for the month of December, which registered a seasonally-adjusted 2.7% rise in sales over the month and a 17.9% increase over the year. The result represented a new record for car sales of 98,264 units sold over the month:
In seasonally adjusted terms, six of the eight states and territories posted an increase in sales.
South Australia managed the largest increase, with sales rising by 4.3% in the month. New South Wales also experienced strong growth, with sales lifting by 4.0%.
The upwards trend in new car sales continues to be driven by strong growth in sales of Sports Utility Vehicles or SUVs (4WDs) and ‘other’ vehicles, although passenger motor vehicles (PMVs) have also surged recently:
Moreover, the trend remains up in all mainland states, except South Australia:
If only it was good news for Australian carmakers but SUVs and ‘other vehicles’ arent so much their strong suite…
But they are strong figures for sure.
Doesn’t the Territory count as an SUV?
The title should read “Imported New car sales hit record high in December, domestic New car sales hit record low in December”.
Yes – the real fruit of the RBAs interest rate strategy.
Combined with the “battler” not responding to the RBA IR setting.
Perhaps developers are buying up all the cars to flog off with their over priced land
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/01/developers-go-completely-mad/
ahaha
+1
Certainly a bright spot in a sea of otherwise pretty ordinary domestic economic data.
Imported cars keep getting cheaper so people are buying them. That’s what happens.
Hey! They should try that idea on housing!
Reckon it would work a treat.
People sick of waiting for house prices to fall, spending any deposit instead on a car.
??
We all need a bit of a boost from buying stuff every so often.
But then comes the post-purchase dissonance, of course.
So if the Aussie is overvalued by 20% the rest of the world is selling us their cars at a price 20% less than they should.
What rational car buyer wouldn’t take advantage of that?
If the whole country takes advantage of that aren’t we comparatively much better off?
Isn’t that the theory of comparative advantage in action?
Except that cars in Australia are sold at a +20% premium compared to what they are sold for overseas.
20%? More like 50 – 100%. It’s all pure profit, Jim.
Depends on the exact brand but, yes, most cars are sold at a significant premium here. Some (eg: the big 3 Euros – BMW, Audi, Mercedes) mark their vehicles up 40-50% without even blinking.
I have found Volkswagen to price their vehicles relatively competitively in Australia. As a bonus, they’re great cars as well.
BB’s buying SUV’s to tow the caravan !
Spent a few days at some caravan parks.
What a shock at all the SUV’s and larger caravans that can now be seen …. yes with Baby Boomers.
Was very tempted to go down the same path myself …. but sanity prevailed. For the lost interest and depreciation of the money invested in these toys one can spend over 6 months overseas in South Asian countries and live like a King.
.
Must start packing my bags soon
Exactly. One neds to look at caravan sales as well aand I think they were up 23%.
Not sure about those numbers – a couple of insider sources have told me that December was a particularly *bad* month. Surely the books aren’t being cooked – are they?
I keep hearing that dealers are registering more and more cars themselves which makes them count as a new car sale.
Don’t they call it ‘channel stuffing’.
thats what sprung to my mind.. I am assuming these actual retail sales and not dealer orders so maybe not
http://www.afr.com/p/national/dealers_jack_up_new_car_sales_ZIpWUPkwsmSdX3tMtimQqJ
There’s your answer.
well there you go then… seems only Mercedes doing well due to China sales but most likely they have shipped 100k Mercs to sit empty outside the 100k empty apartments in Ordos.
Quick look on car sales website reveals 140 Holden Colarado’s for sale with less than 10km on the clock.
NB they are all “used” / “nearly new”
Top catch
Cars are the new whitegoods.
Only my personal perspective but I have given up on buying a house and buying a car is just so much easier. I haven’t bought one yet but very seriously thinking about.
The car market is also far more responsive with incentives and special interest rate deals. There has been so much on offer lately especially very low interest rates.
Cheers
Justin
Similar with you, basically prepared to never own a home and rent till drop. I and wife think that it is better to spend our hard-earned money on overseas trip while we are healthy and strong enough to have really good trip. Last year spent 3 weeks more at the West Coast USA…maybe this year somewhere closer like HK.
Prob will buy a new car if not for the fact that I still love my 5-year old Honda Civic…so not now.
No surprise people love cars, an extension of their ego.
Our 6 yr old Honda is still running well, it is definitely in the bottom quartile of cars when I do the school drop off, the number of SUVs is over 50%…I would not be buying a new car until the electric models arrive on our shore and retail for $15,000. At that price they would pay for themselves within five years (savings on petrol).
Dio, you frivolous bastard, 6 yrs old is almost brand new! Try a 99 modle with 330,000 clicks on the clock.
I live in Mosman and there are more Mercedes here than in Stuttgart
wtf is up with people buying AMG mercs?? 6.3 litre engine…. is it really worth it to be able to accelerate to 60 in 2 nanoseconds???? you certainly wont be able to get it anywhere near top speed without setting off more cameras than Milan fashion week
I’, part of that statistic, got a new Honda CRV 2 days before year end. They gave us a great deal, money off, threw in a couple of grands worth of extras and gave us a good value trade in for old car. Delivery is not till end of month, and if we’d have wanted white it would have been march, so clearly a decent backlog for them.
Friggin money pits on wheels
To some people it’s worth paying $100k for another ton of iron, to me it’s another 2 years of holidays somewhere near the equator. Each to their own
Theses figures are amazing. People just like buying stuff…with debt.
They are a bit like fridges now really.
Its the same here in the UK, the number of new cars sold rose greatly, but the number of those bought on finance (especially PCP) skyrocketed.
Bought a brand new BMW M3 last year.. What a bad decision. It cost 50% cheaper in the states and so far I’ve got 2 speeding tickets. Frugal is always the best.
Sorry to hear it Bernard.
Good luck in the tennis tonight.
I lived in the states for a year and plenty of fresh college graduates driving BMW M3s, Audii S4s, Lexus IS350s, Corvettes, Mustangs etc
You can pick up a 1 year old used premium car there for 30-35K…
From then on, I realise how much Aussies are ripped off. I alway chuckle some mid-manager yuppie driving their premium euros paying close to 100K for them knowing what I know from overseas…
For 100K, Americans drive used Ferraris, Porsche 911s, Lambos… Or spending it on luxury small-medium boats… Aussies get ripped off for these depreciating purchases.
Get ready for some cheap euro marques headed our way
http://www.automotiveworld.com/comment/2012-annus-horribilis-for-eu-car-sales/
Indeed, when I first arrived in the US and saw how much I could buy a 1-2 year old M3, S4, etc, for, it was a huge struggle not to drop the cash on it right there and then, since I knew I’d never be able to afford vehicles like that once I moved back to Australia.
In the end, paid ~$7000 for a (pristine, <50k miles) '03 Mazda Protege5 (323 over here), then sold it for ~$6500 2 years later. *sigh* Being responsible is no fun.
(I do genuinely regret not buying a motorcycle like a Duke 1098 to bring back, since they're so much cheaper, a lot easier to import than a car, and would hold value as an import much better than some mundane Jap bike. However, by the time I'd decided that would be a good idea, I was too close to my departure date to make importing practical.)