The most popular cars for 2012 in Australia

Australia’s car market has always been a diverse one with German and Japanese cars fighting for the No.1 place. Domestic car brands shouldn’t be underrated though, as manufacturers like Holden enjoyed a successful campaign in the past decade. Competition has always been fierce among car brands in Australia, mainly because there is a stable and growing customer market. Factors like low gas prices and good infrastructure have encouraged people to buy cars, which lead to today’s competitive market. Apart from car model designs, there is an ongoing battle in the customer service department between competitors, with domestic Holden Car service being the leader. Let’s see which of most common car brands in Australia were most popular in 2012.

As we’ve mentioned earlier, Japanese cars have taken a step forward in Australian market and Mazda 3 proves this. In 2012, Mazda 3 was the top selling car with about 44.000 units sold. This and other factors helped Mazda score number one spot on the list of the most popular cars in Australia. It was a tight race with Toyota as Toyota’s Hilux was also a potential winner, with most units sold for the period from January to October of 2012. But Mazda was able to significantly improve sales in the last two months of the year, earning the title of the most popular car of 2012. Toyota’s impact on Australian drivers is evident as its models hold the two spots on the most popular car ranking list. After Toyota Hilux, the Corolla is on the 3^rd place with 38,800 units sold for 2012. Success of Toyota Corolla doesn’t stop here, as sales have been on the rise in the first quarter of 2013.

Australia’s domestic brand, Holden, has it’s Commodore on the 4^th place with 30.500 units sold in previous year. This model was an undisputed champion in Australia with a great Holden car service that had led charts from 1996 to 2010. However, there’s clearly a steady decline in sales in recent years, which shows that Japanese models are becoming more suited for Australians. Nevertheless, Holden future is not as bad as numbers may indicate. Next to the Commodore, Holden Cruze with about 29.160 units sold, is number 5 best ranked vehicle, just behind the famous Hyundai i30. 28.340 Hyundai i30 units were sold in 2012 which is very encouraging for Korean car makers.

Since we are interested in the top 5 best ranked vehicles for 2012, see the list below to find out which vehicles made it to the very top in Australia in the previous year: Toyota Camry (27.230) ; Nissan Navara (26.045); Toyota Yaris (18,808). Ford Focus with a strong campaign and good Ford service center managed to score 10^th place with 18.567 units sold.