The Australian large car segment continued its decline in 2012 with sales of large cars under $70,000 down by 20.4 percent compared to 2011, which it self was down significantly on 2010.
The Holden Commodore ended 2012 with 30,532 sales, down from 40,617 sales in 2011. A 24.8 percent decline. Meanwhile, the Ford Falcon went from 18,741 sales in 2011 to just 14,036 sales in 2012. Down 25.1 percent despite the introduction of the highly anticipated Ecoboost.
The Toyota Aurion was the only car in the large car segment under $70,000 to record a viable year on year increase, thanks to the introduction of a new model. Sales beat the downward trend and went up by 1.8 percent from 8,915 to 9,074, with Toyota’s aggressive finance deals having a significant impact. Peugeot’s 508 managed to find 1,085 buyers this year compared with last year’s incomplete record of 285.
The Skoda Superb came down by 24.9 percent (869 to 653) while the Nissan Maxima counted 1,454 (down from 1,923). Honda also suffered the general downward trend with the Accord coming down from 1,978 to 1,565.
The large car segment over $70,000 managed to maintain it sales figures with a moderate one percent decline on 2011. The big winner was the Lexus GS, which went from 114 sales in 2011 to 624 in 2012 with the arrival of an all-new model.
The Volvo S80 also more than doubled its sales from 23 to 47 while the Jaguar XF went from 550 to 648 (up 17.8 percent) thanks to more affordable entry models. The Audi A7 (down 31.6 percent), Audi A6 (down 8.6 percent despite update), Mercedes-Benz E-Class (down 25.3 percent) and BMW 5 Series (down 21.5 percent) all suffered from the general trend towards smaller cars
