September ’13 sales (prelim)

[Road_Warrior]

http://news.drive.com.au/drive/motor...003-2uv42.html

The Australian car industry remains on track for a record year of new car sales despite a slight softening of the market in September in the wake of the federal election.

The Coalition’s changes to industry policy, including the reversing of Labor’s adjustments to the fringe benefits tax, have been cited as a key factor for the surge in buyer confidence. In a dose of good news for local manufacturing, Ford has announced it will return to full production of its Falcon and Territory variants on the back of a strong month.

According to industry figures released on Thursday, Australians purchased 92,622 vehicles for the month of September, bringing year-to-date sales to almost 850,000 – a 3.3 per cent increase on a record 2012 calendar year.

While the monthly result represents a 3.9 per cent decrease on September 2012, industry officials remain bullish about the prospect of a record year of sales given the election turnaround. Vehicle sales traditionally slow in the lead-up to a federal election.

The Toyota Corolla was the best-seller for the month of September with 3443 sales, edging out the Toyota Hilux (3341) and Mazda3 (3052). The new VF Holden Commodore finished fourth with 2869 sales – its best performance of the year.

Jeep continued its sales renaissance outside the top-sellers, lead by strong sales of its Grand Cherokee (1402).

The Ford Falcon, in particular, enjoyed a significant turnaround in sales in the weeks since the Coalition’s reversal of changes to the fringe benefits tax.
The Falcon rose to 846 sales, up from its lowest ever result of 573 for the month of August, and the Ford Territory rose to 1130.

Ford spokeswoman Sinead Phipps said the result reflected recent changes to the FBT, as well as a welcome return in consumer confidence. Phipps said the result meant Ford would not schedule any more down days at its Broadmeadows plant, having shut production for 12 days during August and September because of poor sales.

“Both the Falcon and the Territory have come back significantly since last month… sales of local production is up 37 per cent in comparison to August,” she told Fairfax Media.

“We believe a lot of that turnaround is due to the FBT changes being reversed. I can also confirm that there will be no more down days between now and the end of the year because of the rebound local production sales.”
The biggest year-to-date increases in demand were in the ever-popular SUV segment (up 8.9 per cent), light commercials (up 5.2 per cent) and Sports car segment, up 3,292 (20.6%).

Toyota was the top-selling marque for the month of September with 17492 sales, ahead of Holden (9614), Mazda (7615) , Hyundai (8803) and Ford (7505).

Giddyup. When’s VFacts come out?