New car registrations in 2019 posted their first calendar-year decline in a decade as tailwinds supporting earlier record sales subsided, Motor Industry Association figures show.
Some 154,479 new passenger and commercial vehicles were registered last year, down from a record 161,519 in 2018, the association said. That was the first annual decline since 2009, when new car sales plummeted 28 percent as the local economy tanked amid the global financial crisis.
"As expected, for 2019 the market was down 4.3 percent on 2018," MIA chief executive David Crawford said in a statement. "It is the first time since 2009, the height of the global financial crisis, that we have seen a year on year drop in new vehicle registrations and comes after five consecutive record years."
Crawford said the local market continued to be dominated by utility vehicles, with the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux the top two selling vehicles in 2019 at 9,486 and 7,126 respectively. However, that demand tapered off by the December quarter, he said.
Pessimism among builders and farmers – two key buyers of utes – weighed on demand for commercial vehicles, with the rural sector unsettled by the prospect of tougher environmental regulation and the construction boom's peak posing questions for the building industry.