SUV sales closing in on passenger cars

SUVs are within firing range of traditional passenger cars, according to official vehicle sales figures obtained by Wheels ahead of their official release today.

The high-riding wagons grew 3.2 percent and accounted for 40.2 percent of the 84,910 new vehicles sold in January, 2017, while sedans, hatchbacks and wagons made up for 41.1 percent of sales.

Despite the continued growth in SUV sales the small SUVs that now account for 24 percent of the soft-roaders went backwards, down 4.1 percent on January, 2016.

While the overall figure was up 0.6 percent on January 2016, it fell short of the January record of 85,430 cars sold in 2013.

Among the winners in the January sales – typically skewed towards private buyers looking for an end-of-year runout bargain when so many people are on holidays – was Porsche, capitalising on record interest in its off-road models.

With 581 sales – 79 percent of them for the Porsche Macan and Cayenne SUVs - the sports car specialist outsold more mainstream brands including Volvo, Jeep, Lexus, Peugeot, Citroen, Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Mini and Skoda.

In gearing up to launch its inaugural SUV, Porsche rival Maserati registered 52 of the Levante soft-roaders, surging its sales 89 percent, albeit to a tiny overall tally of 68 cars.

Other luxury brands – including Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Lexus, Lamborghini and Land Rover – experienced sales drops off the back of a record year for luxury vehicles.

Much of the heavy lifting for the new car sales market was done by Toyota (12,554) and Mazda (10,067) each of which incrementally grew sales over the same time last year.

The Mazda 3 was the top selling vehicle with 3473 registrations, ahead of the Toyota Corolla (2943).

The top selling vehicle of 2016, Toyota’s Hilux, fell to third on the list of top sellers with 2702 sales.

The tally was just enough to maintain a slender lead over the hard charging Ford Ranger (2622), the fourth best seller for January.

Hyundai’s swinging sales started on a low with the brand dropping 4.2 percent and falling behind Holden, which had a rare good month to grow 5.3 percent and slot back into third place on the sales charts.

Key to Hyundai’s sales slide was a drop in interest in the Hyundai Tucson SUV.

With 1678 sales it was one of the few SUVs to experience a slide, although the figure was enough to make it the third most popular soft-roader in the country, behind the Mazda CX-5 (1924) and Nissan X-Trail (1759).

Hyundai’s sister brand Kia continued its sales surge, increasing its January tally 29 percent on last year, enough to make it the eighth most popular brand.

Ford’s 5912 sales were up 7.4 percent while Nissan’s 5012 were down 9.9 percent.

Of the luxury brands it was Mercedes-Benz that once again led the way with 2972 sales (2709 once vans and trucks are taken out of the figures).

While the figure was down 4.1 percent on January last year it was clearly ahead of German rivals BMW (2104) and Audi (2025).

The Mercedes-Benz C-Class mid-sized sedan remained Benz’s top seller, with 651 sales.

The C was also the top selling mid-sized vehicle in the country, outselling the Toyota Camry with 580 sales (Toyota typically pulls Camry registrations into January to pump the end-of-year figures, in turn sacrificing the official January figures as it clears ‘demonstrator’ stock).

Official VFACTS data is released at noon today.

TOP 10 PASSENGER CARS FOR JANUARY 2017*

*Preliminary VFACTS sales figures

TOP 20 MANUFACTURERS FOR JANUARY 2017*

*Preliminary VFACTS sales figures