January is traditionally an odd month for new car sales. People are on vacation, stock is often at unusual levels but some things remain unchanged and Toyota started where it finished 2014 – on top with sales of 13,661 vehicles for a dominant market share of 16.6 per-cent.
Ominously for rivals, that represents the best January performance by Toyota for three years.
And the Japanese giant is warming-up for a massive year.
“Toyota is on the cusp of one of its busiest launch periods with at least 10 new or refreshed models to be introduced over the next 12 months,” revealed Toyota Australia’s sales and marketing chief Tony Cramb.
In total Australians bought 82,116 new vehicles last month, just 169 down on January 2014.
Mazda was second overall with sales of 9,006 vehicles to lock-in the ranking as Australia’s most popular full-import brand.
Mazda 3 (3,903 sales) beat Toyota Corolla by a few hundred vehicles to be Australia’s best-selling individual model for the month, Mazda CX-5 (1,699 sales) was the number on SUV and Mazda2 (1,391 sales) topped the compact car segment.
The brand new Ford Falcon had its worst month of sales ever, selling only 381 units.
Holden ranked third with sales of 8,401 vehicles ahead of Hyundai (6,901) and Ford (5,347).
