Some reporting of the June car industry sales figures missed an important comparison.
Firstly, they were lower than June of last year, which was a record.
Secondly, they were boosted by the recovery in car imports from Japan (see the trade story for the recovery in May imports).
But they were still down 8,000 units, which was 64% of the drop from June of last year.
In May and April car sales were reduced by the unavailability of cars from Japan in particular.
Thirdly, they were boosted by the usual end of financial year marketing boost designed to attract business customers.
And there was a big surge in small car sales, and another drop in sales of Ford Falcons (the big six cylinder models).
All in all June was a strong month for the industry, the best so far this year.
The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) said the June sales figures though were the lowest for eight years because of the lingering supply restrictions from Japan (and Japanese factories in Thailand).
The FCAI said 96,157 new vehicles were sold in June, 11.6% fewer than last year’s all-time record (108,722) for the same month.
“It is clear that sales in the past month were again affected by supply constraints resulting from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami,” FCAI chief executive Andrew McKellar said in a statement.
“Manufacturers and distributors affected by the Japanese natural disaster are reporting a reliable return of supply.
“We would expect the effect to dissipate over coming months, ” he said.
But June’s figure was up 24% from May’s 77,406 and above the 93,984 sold in March. They were also nearly 22,000 more than April’s 74,214 units.
And despite the constraints of April, May and June, 496,236 new vehicles were sold in the first half of the year, providing a total of 1,000,642 vehicles for the 2011 financial year, only the fourth time the million unit sales barrier has been broken in a financial year.
“Depending on the extent of the rebound in supply, we remain hopeful that total sales of more than a million vehicles are still achievable for the full year in 2011,” Mr McKellar said.
“Consumer demand has softened and we do have concerns that sales could be hampered as the FBT changes begin to influence demand patterns,” he said.
Locally manufactured sales outperformed the market in general in June, recording 2.2% growth compared with the same period last year.
That was to be expected given the supply disruptions from Japan.
But the recent start of sales of the locally manufactured Holden Cruze, and an upturn in production and sales of the Ford Territory diesel model helped boost numbers.
Holden claimed market leadership for the second month in a row in June with 12,827 deliveries, ahead of Toyota with 12,514 sales and Ford with 9,216.
Toyota was held back by the lack of a continuous supply from its recovering Japanese plants.
But the most interesting change is in which model leads the market.
At the end of June, the Mazda3 was ahead of the Holden Commodore, 21,212 units to 21,032.
Mazda’s sales were not as damaged as those of Toyota’s by the impact of the supply disruptions after March 11.
And 4212 Mazda3s, a popular vehicle among private buyers, were sold in June, up 14% from a year ago, while Commodore sales fell 19% to 3809 units.
The Ford Falcon remains a black hole: down 30% in June to just 1,847 sales (and 11th overall). For the year so far Falcon sales are down 43% on a year ago, while the Commodore is down just 9%.
Expensive sports cars grew by almost 15%, led by BMW’s new 6-Series convertible.
While luxury SUV sales continue strongly, other SUV segments including compact, medium and large saw big falls last month.
Diesel models have 27% of the market, down a touch on earlier months, but steady on June of last year.
