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Australia Full Year 2012 Private Sales: What consumers really buy

Mazda2 Australia 2012. Picture courtesy of themotorreport.com.auThe Mazda2 in #4 in the Australian Private Sales ranking!

* See the Top 50 best-selling models by clicking on the title! Many thanks to David *

Thanks to David, for the first time on BSCB I can share with you a Private Sales models ranking for Australia. But first a bit about the methodology. Private sales accounted for just under 50% of the overall Australian new car market in 2012 at 541,338 units. Private sales are defined as vehicles bought in an individual’s name. Other categories are non-governmental fleet (rental companies, company leases and other private companies such as bikesales.com.au).

and government. Japanese manufacturers, in particular Mazda (3 models in the Top 6!) and Honda, are excelling at this little game.

Mazda3 Australia 2012The Mazda3 is even more dominant in the Private Sales ranking than in the overall sales charts.

The Mazda3 dominates the ranking head-and-shoulders with a huge 84% Private Sales ratio leading to 37,050 sales and 6.8% markets share, only bettered in the Top 50 by the Mazda2 at #4 and 87% (vs. #14 overall) and the Honda Jazz at #19 and 85% vs. #38. The Mazda3 is no less than 12,000 sales and 2.2 percentage point share above the #2, the Toyota Corolla at 24,874 units and 4.6%. The Holden Cruze rounds up the podium with a reasonable 56% private ratio.

2014 Honda Jazz Australia. Picture courtesy of themotorreport.com.au85% of Honda Jazz (2014 model shown) are purchased by private buyers.

Other great performers inside the Top 10 include the Ford Focus at #5 with 13,409 sales and 72% private ratio, the Mazda CX-5 at #6 and 82% private vs. #17 and the VW Golf at #9 and 61%. Notice also the Honda Civic at #11 and 84% vs. #31, the Suzuki Swift at #14 and 75% vs. #27, Ford Fiesta at #18 and 77% vs. #34, Great Wall V-Series at #29 and 79% vs. #49 (which is outstanding given it’s a commercial vehicle), VW Tiguan at 75%, Honda Accord Euro at 79%, VW Polo at 78% and Honda CR-V at 79%.

Holden Commodore Australia 2013. Picture courtesy of caradvice.com.auWill the new Holden Commodore regain the favours of private buyers in Australia?

On the other end of the scale, the Holden Commodore is down to #12 with just 31% of sales going to private buyers. Now this is to be taken with a grain of salt, because as the methodology shows, non-private sales include novated leases which are technically leases to private buyers. However it is well known that the Commodore is mainly sold to fleet these days which has been at the core of its sliding down the Australian ranking. In detail, its sales are 9,466 private (31%), 16,186 non-government fleet (53%) and 4,880 government (16%). It will be interesting to see how private sales of the new generation Commodore fare this year. For its part the Ford Falcon is at 23% private which places it outside the Top 50.

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Full Year 2012 Top 50 Private Sales models Ranking Table below.

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