Australia’s top SUV brands

It’s hardly a secret at this point that SUVs are the driving force behind the Australian new vehicle market – even though the top two vehicles are actually utes.

In 2017, these (often nominally) higher-riding options have in fact eclipsed sales of regular passenger vehicles – by which we mean sedans, hatches, wagons, people-movers and sports cars.

While passenger car sales have declined 9 per cent this year and have been heading downward since 2012, SUVs are up about 2 per cent this year with a market share of 39.3 per cent.

By comparison, passenger cars own 38.8 per cent share. Just five years ago, the figures read 51 per cent share for passenger cars versus 28 per cent for SUVs.

What we’re trying to do with this story is show which brands have capitalised on this SUV growth.

As you can read in the table below, the top-ten SUV brands this year are: Toyota, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Hyundai, Holden, Kia, Honda and Ford.

By comparison, the overall top-ten brands with all vehicle types included this year are: Toyota, Mazda, Hyundai, Holden, Ford, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Volkswagen, Kia, and Subaru.

The brands with the fastest SUV sales growth this year are Volkswagen (up 54.3 per cent), Kia (up 30.1 per cent), Mitsubishi (up 18 per cent), Mazda (up 15.9 per cent) and Hyundai (up 13.2 per cent).

The respective driving forces for each brand have been the all-new Volkswagen Tiguan, Kia Sportage, Mitsubishi Outlander/Pajero Sport, Mazda CX-9 and Hyundai Santa Fe.

On the flipside, the brands with counter-intuitive declining SUV sales this year include Nissan, Subaru, Honda, Ford, Land Rover, Jeep and Isuzu.

Another key measurement is the percentage of a brand’s total sales that are SUVs this year. Given the market-share of SUVs is 39.3 per cent, that is the average.

Using this, above-average brands are Porsche (79 per cent of its cars sold are Macan and Cayenne), Nissan (heavily reliant on the Qashqai, Pathfinder and X-Trail with 68 per cent), Subaru (XV, Forester and Outback, 62 per cent), Lexus (NX, RX and LX, 60 per cent) and Mitsubishi (ASX, Outlander, Pajero Sport and Pajero, 57 per cent).

The top-ten selling SUVs across the whole market this year so far are the: Mazda CX-5, Hyundai Tucson, Toyota RAV4, Nissan X-Trail, Mazda CX-3, Toyota Prado, Mitsubishi ASX, Mitsubishi Outlander, Kia Sportage and Subaru Forester. Seven-out-of-ten are medium SUVs, including the top-four.

The numbers

BRAND	SUV SALES YTD 2017	CHANGE	% OF SALES THAT ARE SUVs
Toyota	20,468	up 2.4 per cent	32 per cent
Mazda	16,842	up 15.9 per cent	43 per cent
Mitsubishi	13,685	up 18 per cent	57 per cent
Nissan	12,576	down 5.1 per cent	68 per cent
Subaru	10,341	down 4.5 per cent	62 per cent
Hyundai	9944	up 13.2 per cent	34 per cent
Holden	6954	up 6.6 per cent	27 per cent
Kia	5966	up 30.1 per cent	35 per cent
Honda	5748	down 10.8 per cent	46 per cent
Ford	4571	down 22.1 per cent	19 per cent
Land Rover	4500	down 10 per cent	100 per cent
Volkswagen	4464	up 54.3 per cent	25 per cent
BMW	4114	down 14.9 per cent	51 per cent
Mercedes-Benz	3822	down 20.3 per cent	28 per cent
Suzuki	3489	up 31.4 per cent	57 per cent
Audi	3281	up 3.5 per cent	49 per cent
Jeep	2602	down 46.4 per cent	100 per cent
Isuzu Ute	1956	down 13.1 per cent	32 per cent
Lexus	1764	down 5.7 per cent	60 per cent
Porsche	1425	up 2.6 per cent	79 per cent

Podcast

Listen to the CarAdvice team discuss April’s sales figures below, and catch more like this at http://ift.tt/23kpPZz.

MORE: VFACTS car sales news stories 

 Any sales figures not mentioned here that you want to know? Ask away, in the comments. 

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