The Ford Ranger continued its dominance of the 4X4 market in February beating out the Toyota HiLux and Mitsubishi Triton.
Australia’s new vehicle sales recorded their 23rd month of negative growth in February with 79,940 vehicles finding new homes. SUVs continued to dominate the market with more than 39,304 sales, followed by passenger vehicles with 22,648 sales and light commercial vehicles selling 15,523 vehicles.
Chief executive of the FCAI, Tony Weber, said: “The Australian new vehicle market has now seen a downturn each month for the past 23 months. In economic terms, a recession is declared after two quarters of negative growth – and this industry has now seen seven consecutive quarters of negative growth.
“There is no doubt that this is an extraordinarily difficult time for the automotive industry – a situation sadly underlined by the recent announcement of Holden’s withdrawal from the Australian market,” Mr Weber said.
In terms of 4X4 sales, Ford Ranger continued its strong performance selling 3003 vehicles for a 25.7 per cent share of the 4X4 market. Toyota’s HiLux 4X4 finished second again with 2682 sales while the Mitsubishi Triton held onto third spot with 1437 sales. The Toyota Prado took out fourth spot with 1316 sales, the LandCruiser 200 Series in fifth with 1162 sales, the Nissan Navara grabbed sixth spot, the Isuzu D-Max seventh with the Pajero Sport taking eighth place, the LandCruiser taking ninth place, the Mazda BT-50 nabbing 10th and the Volkswagen Amarok taking 11th spot, while the Holden Colorado grabbed 12th place and the Ford Everest in 13th with 775, 702, 679, 677, 552, 549, 508, and 502 vehicles sales respectively.
