The June edition of the Automotive Insights Report (AIR) shows a growing oversupply of used cars in Australia as the gap widens between vehicles listed for sale and vehicles sold at the end of the financial year.
The monthly used car market data put out by the Australian Automotive Dealers Association and AutoGrab shows that listings grew by 2.1% in June while sales remained flat, increasing marginally by 0.3%.
The increase in supply has seen used vehicle values decrease across the board, with discounting leading to customers quickly snapping up bargains and average days to sell hitting a 12-month low.
“Buyers benefit from the fact that a greater variety of used vehicles are available for sale at lower prices. Nevertheless, we have not seen a surge in sales relative to listings, which may result from softer economic conditions as evidenced by the drop in new car sales in June,” AADA chief executive James Voortman says.
“The outlier is the Western Australian market, which saw an almost 13% drop in used car listings along with a healthy 6.1% increase in sales, meaning the supply situation in the West is tighter than the East Coast.
“Light commercial vehicles, such as utes and vans, have greater oversupply than passenger vehicles and SUVs. Utes were the only segment that experienced a decline in sales in June, although they still made up three (Ranger, Hilux and Triton) of the four top selling used vehicles.
“The declining trend in retained values continues with every vehicle segment across every age category experiencing a reduced value for the month,” he says.
Vehicles which hold their values best are now almost exclusively small in the segment, with the Toyota Corolla being the best performer in the 2-4-year-old (99.8%) segment, and the Toyota Yaris is in the 5-7-year-old (99.0%) segment.
In the SUV Segment, the Suzuki Jimny is the frontrunner, holding its value at an extraordinary 116.9% in the 2-4-year-old category.
June AIR highlights:
• 302,848 vehicles are listed for sale, an increase of 2.1% compared to the previous month.
• Listings experienced the highest increase in the ACT (12.5%), the Northern Territory (9.7%) and Queensland (7.5%). Western Australia was an outlier, with a 12.9% reduction in listings.
• 192,266 used cars were sold in June, an increase of 0.3% from the previous month.
• Sales were most robust in the NT (12.4%) and weakest in Victoria (-4.6%).
• Average time to sell a used car is 43.8 days, the lowest it has been over the past 12 Months
.• Retained values continue their gradual decline, with passenger vehicles holding their value best in the 2-4 year age bracket (83.3%) and the older 5-7 yearcategory (69.1%).
• The Ford Ranger remains Australia’s best-selling used car, followed by the Toyota Hilux.
