Market Insight: SUVs shine July’s light

JULY 2023 broke the usual post-EOFY downturn, becoming a record month for new vehicle deliveries, up 14.7 per cent with almost 100,000 vehicles sold.

Drilling into the data reveals a few surprises, such as a sharp drop in rental and government passenger car sales;  the 864.6 per cent rocket in battery electric SUVs to 33,874 units from a mere 3512 in 2022’s first seven months; and booming car imports from England (up 82 per cent), Germany (up 27.8 per cent), Czechia (up 32.3 per cent) and – of course – China, up 97.6 per cent.

While the total market for the seven months to July 31 was up 9.0 per cent compared with the same period in 2022, pretty much all of the impetus came from the SUV sector.

Australians bought 379,216 SUVs in the seven months, with 57,003 sold in July alone. The genre now commands 55.9 per cent of the vehicles we choose and this grows monthly.

The passenger car sector is the one that has taken the hits, despite the Tesla Model 3 propping up the medium sedan category – albeit with a 1.5 per cent drop. It now represents only 17.8 per cent of the total market yet includes eight sub-categories from micro to upper-large, and sports to people movers. 

Clearly, SUVs dominate. By comparison, the light-commercial market, driven by sectors such as the 4x4 ute bracket which contains Australia’s newly crowned top-selling vehicle, the Ford Ranger, has a 21.8 per cent share of the total market, down 2.1 per cent. Much of that is attributed to lack of supply.

Regardless, the Ranger still sold 4828 units in July – the best seller for the month regardless of genre – ahead of the supply-affected HiLux with 3777 sales.

The SUV share is higher by 3.4 per cent than the 52.5 per cent it owned in 2022. A few makes and models helped this happen and given supply can still limit deliveries – case in point Toyota – its potential is quite a bit more than the current figures indicate.

A key driver to the SUV avalanche is that it has become the ‘go-to’ genre for new-car buyers. Any buyer, any age and practically any need.

Then there is the fact there are so many of them. Walk into any brand showroom and they practically litter the floor. In some cases – Mitsubishi, Jeep, SsangYong, GWM, for example – there are only SUVs. Perhaps a couple of utes as well.

Australia’s best-selling SUV, on year-to-date data, is the MG ZS with 17,431 sales. For July, it found 3852 buyers.

The MG – which has the lion’s share 21.5 per cent of the small SUV segment – pushed Tesla’s Model Y off the top spot, which sold 17,332 for the year and 3730 for the month.

Australia’s biggest selling SUV in June was the Model Y (14,002 sales for the year, 5560 for the month) and much of its shift to second position is attributed to stock decline after a large shipment arrived in June, and also to the FBT status of the previous financial year.

Other movers in the SUV category for July included the Mazda CX-3 which sold 1563 units in the month for a 29.7 per cent market share in the category; GWM Haval Jolion, up 68.7 per cent on July 2022 with 834 sales; MG ZS, up 50.2 per cent and 3852 sales for July; Volkswagen Tiguan which had 744 sales, up 420.3 per cent for the month and 295.9 per cent YTD; and the Kia Sorento with 402 sales and a 63.1 per cent YTD rise.

On top of that is the new Range Rover (40 sold in July) and a fresh shipment of other JLR products; the 1005 sales of the BYD Atto3 EV; the introduction of the Chery Omoda 5; and the strong 60 sales of the new Mazda CX-60.