AUSTRALIA Strong Commercial Sales Drive the Fleet Market in Australia Fleet sales are tracking at a record pace in 2017 relecting the strength of the Aus-tralian economy and improved mining sector. SUV sales are hot with both consum-ers and leets as OEMs introduce more new models into the market. BY MIKE ANTICH A ustralian new-vehicle sales hit back-to-back record highs in both May and June 2017. It looks like 2017 is on track to break the 2016 sales record, making it the third con-secutive record-breaking sales year. In 2016, the Australian new-vehicle mar-ket reached 1.178 million units, up 2% on the industry’s previous record in 2015. he Australian Federal Chamber of Au-tomotive Industries reported 134,171 new vehicles (both retail an d leet) were sold in June 2017, up 4.4 % compared to the same month last year. In June 2017, leet-speciic sales for the light commercial market were up 3,079 ve-hicles sales (12.2%) and the heavy commer-cial vehicle market was up by 327 vehicle sales (9.2%) versus June 2016. In Australia, June is a strong automo-tive sales month as dealers clear stock for the end of the inancial year. SUVs and utes are powering the Aus-tralian market toward a probable record year. Sales of sport/utilities surged 11.7% in June, with the upper large SUV segment rising almost 21%. Likewise, in the month of May 2017, business purchases of sport/utilities climbed 14.9%, while light commercial purchases by the government rose 31.7%. Sales to rental fleets were also strong dur-10 AUTOMOTIVE FLEET I Q3 2017 ing the month of May. “For the irst time ever in the Australian market, passenger vehicle sales have been overtaken by SUV sales,” said George Loukas, director, nation-LOUKAS Holden al leet for Holden. SUVs and utes were hot sellers as private buyers and small businesses took advantage of special incentive ofers in the lead up to the end of the inancial year. he Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger utes were the top two sellers overall in June as demand for sedans and small hatchbacks continued to slide. Heavy discounts on the Toyota HiLux SR5 and Ford Ranger XLT over the past two months saw record sales for both models. (For those unfamiliar with the term, an ute is an abbreviation for “utility” or “coupe utility,” which is used in Australia and New Zealand to describe a two-wheel-drive, traditional passenger vehicles with a car-go bed in the rear integrated with the pas-senger body; as opposed to a pickup truck whose cargo bed is not integrated with the passenger body.) New-vehicle sales data from the Austra-lian Federal Chamber of Automotive Indus-tries shows that 92,754 vehicles were reg-istered in July 2017. he July igures were up 1.6% from the corresponding month in 2016 and the market as a whole was up 0.4% over the same period in 2016. In July, Toyota dominated the sales charts with ive models appearing in the top 10. he HiLux ute was No. 1 with 3,742 sales, with the Ford Ranger coming in second at 3,076 sales. In addition to SUVs, luxury vehicle sales are also booming with both BMW and Audi selling just over 2,000 units in July. Mercedes-Benz took the No. 1 spot with sales of more than 2,600 units. State of the Australian Economy he macroeconomic factors driving 2017 automotive demand in Australia are the pre-vailing interest rate, inance availability, cur-rent and expected rates of general econom-ic growth, and the level of government and consumer spending. he economy of Australia is one of the largest mixed market economies in the world, with a GDP of AUD$1.69 trillion as of 2017. Australia has a strong economy that is mainly based on services and min-ing, making it the 12th largest economy in the world. he Australian economy is domi-nated by its service sector, comprising 61.1% of the GDP and employing 79.2% of the la-bor force in 2016. he Australian economy is improving as some earlier headwinds have passed or
Automotive Fleet Sep 2017: 10
