New vehicle sales in Australia have grown in 2016, with a 2% overall bump to 1,178,133 vehicles rolling off the showroom floor. Of that, over 50% of new vehicle sales were either a ute or SUV.
Ute sales continue to lead the charge, with a total of 146,820 4WD utes being snapped up by Australians on 2016. This is a very solid 9.6% growth in overall sales compared to last year (134,003). In fact, 4X4 utes accounted for 12.5% of overall vehicle sales.
Of this, Toyota’s HiLux and Ford’s Ranger both garnered a shade over 20% of the total 4WD ute market each, with 31,076 Toyota’s just outselling Ford’s count of 30,880 Rangers.
Third place goes to the Mitsubishi Triton (17,969), followed by the Holden Colorado (16,353) and Nissan Navara (13,863). After that comes the Isuzu D-Max (11,321), Mazda BT-50 (9,489) and the Volkswagen Amarok (7,498).
Quite impressively, the Toyota HiLux actually topped out as the best-selling vehicle overall in Australia for 2016, the first time a ute has taken that honour. Ford’s Ranger came in at fourth place, with Toyota’s Corolla and Hyundai’s i30 in between them.
Ford managed to shift 3,614 Everests during 2016, no doubt taking a slice of pie away from the popular and entrenched LandCruiser Prado, which totalled 14,730. Jeep moved 6,379 of the Grand Cherokee out, which is 46% less than they did in the previous year. The ageing Pajero also took a big (20%) cut in sales, moving only 4,049 of the once very popular model.
Smaller 4X4 wagons had stronger competition, with the Isuzu MU-X (7,018) outgunning the Mitsubishi Pajero Sport (6,238) and Toyota Fortuner (3,871). The Jeep Wrangler also had a relatively quiet year, sliding down almost 40% to 1,283 sold for the year.
2016 Toyota HiLuxAnd without an option for the diesel engine, the Nissan Patrol has been dominated by the Toyota LandCruiser 200 Series, moving only 2,003 (compared to 11,813 LandCruisers). The Land Rover Discovery racked up 2,470, impressively beaten by its stablemate Range Rover Sport with 3,099 units sold.
