Australia is a big place, so it makes sense we’d like our cars. Now we have the numbers to prove it, as the latest motor vehicle sales figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show that we bought more brand new cars last month than we ever have before.
According to the ABS, Australians splurged on 103,743 new cars in the month of December, up by a seasonally adjusted 4.5% over November’s figures of 99,756.
Perhaps even more surprising is the difference a year can make, with sales being 6.7% higher than the same period at the end of 2016.
Here are some other interesting tidbits. Sales of SUV’s and vehicles classified as Other continued to trend upwards when comparing national trend estimates, increasing by 0.5%.
Tasmania had the biggest upward trend between November and December, with sales rising 2.2%. Compare that with the Northern Territory and the ACT where they continued their downward trend with their respective figures dropping 1.9% and 0.3%.
Over the year, over 1.187 million new cars were sold throughout Australia, with both SUV’s and other vehicles trending upwards, but standard passenger vehicle sales declining.