The Economy: Car Sales Make Solid Start To 2012

While retailing shrinks, car sales remain very buoyant, even after taking into account the extra day in February.

Industry figures released yesterday show that the industry has made a very solid start to 2012, with sales running above an annual rate of more than a million vehicles.

Despite oil and petrol prices rising during the month and returning to the headlines, there was no real sign of any impact on sales, with Sports utility Vehicles again having a solid month, after a very strong January.

The car sales data also suggests (as does the ANZ job ads survey) the economy is growing around the level expected by the Reserve Bank, even if sections of retail are weak.

Taken with yesterday's strong rise in job ads last month (and in January), the current pace of car sales is pointing to a continuation of solid growth in consumption, even with retail sales in department stores, boutiques and groups like Harvey Norman, obviously weak.

In total, 162,506 vehicles were sold in the first two months of this year, up 5.2% over last year, and a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.039 million vehicles for the full year.

Official VFACTS data released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) shows a second strong month for 2012 with 85,723 passenger cars, SUVs and commercial vehicles sold in February, up 6% (4,827 vehicles) from February of last year.

Taking into consideration the extra selling day in February this year (25 compared with 24 in 2011), this was an increase of 1.7%.

The encouraging February results are also an 11.6% increase (or 8,940 vehicles) on January's 76,785 units.

"The love affair between Australians and sports utility vehicles continues," FCAI Chief Executive, Ian Chalmers said in yesterday's statement.

"The SUV market has clearly made a strong connection with auto customers by meeting their diverse needs.

"This is demonstrated by overall SUV sales being up 23.8 per cent (4,505) since last month and 26.6 per cent (9,578) compared with February last year.

"These impressive numbers are due to a 73.4 per cent increase (2,148) in the sales of small SUVs since January 2012, which is a 68.1 per cent increase (3,767) in the sales of small SUVs over that same period in 2011," Mr Chalmers said.

Passenger car sales were depressed, increasing by only 1.3% (591) from January.

Toyota was the best performing brand in February selling 14,849 vehicles, followed by Holden with 9,688 and then Mazda with 8,689.

Mazda and Hyundai in fact extended their lead over Ford while Honda returned to the top 10 in February despite continuing supply problems from flood-ravaged Thailand. Honda's Japanese-made and sourced Accord Euro and Odyssey performed particularly well.

Honda replaced Kia of South Korea in the top 10 last month.

The Mazda3 was again the top seller, topping the Toyota Corolla and Holden Commodore by 742 units, and stretching its overall lead for 2012 to 1404 units.

The popularity of small cars continued in February, with five cars filling the top 10 positions overall.

The Mitsubishi Lancer (1449) and the Volkswagen Golf (1314) were other strong performers that just missed the top 10.

And the Mazda2 stretched its lead in the light category, ahead of the Toyota Yaris (1366), the Hyundai i20 (1093) and the Holden Barina (1023).

But sales of light cars have fallen more than 10% so far this year.

The medium segment had a big month, with a jump in sales of 26.5%.

Toyota's Camry led the segment, but the Accord Euro was the big winner with 1105 sales and second place overall.

Among big cars, the Holden Commodore saw more a jump of more than 500 units in its February sales. But it's still down 20% from a year ago, as is the Ford Falcon (1192 units).

Rank	Top 10 sales by marque:		Top 10 sales by model:
1	Toyota	14,849	Mazda3	3,733
2	Holden	9,688	Holden Commodore	2,991
3	Mazda	8,689	Toyota Corolla	2,991
4	Hyundai	7,412	Holden Cruze	2,880
5	Ford	6,951	Hyundai i30	2,433
6	Nissan	6,227	Toyota HiLux	2,272
7	Mitsubishi	5,166	Nissan Navara	2,017
8	Volkswagen	4,132	Mazda2	1,771
9	Subaru	3,225	Toyota Camry	1,562
10	Honda	2,603	Focus Ford	1,524

Sydney analyst, Steve Allen of Fusion said yesterday the diesel powered cars lifted again in February, "up around two share points on January and up more than this on last year and a year to date share of around 27% share, up about two share points on year ago." "Other fuel types continuing to have very small and diminishing impact, even given the chatter," he said.