Small Cars Big Players in Oz Market, Survey Shows

The average spending budget for the more than 2.3 million Australians intending to buy a new car within the next four years is about A$35,000 ($33,234), a survey finds.

Roy Morgan Research says SUV segments command the highest price levels, with those buyers planning to spend at least A$9,000 ($8,544) more than those seeking other passenger vehicles.

By volume across the main vehicle segments, Australian consumers are budgeting a collective A$13 billion ($12.3 billion) on small cars in the next four years. Despite costing about A$10,000 ($9,493) less each, planned national small-car spending exceeds that to be spent on medium and large models combined.

The second largest overall outlay is expected to be on large SUVs, with Australians budgeting an average A$41,170 ($39,087) for a total of A$10 billion ($9.5 billion) for the segment by 2017.

Roy Morgan Research Automotive Group Account Director Jordan Pakes says more new cars per capita were sold in Australia in 2012 than in any other market in the world.

“Despite a marginal decline in new-vehicle sales in September, sales for the first nine months in 2013 are up by 3.3% and look on track to eclipse the 2012 record of more than 1.1 million sales,” he says in a statement.

“With the average private buyer looking to spend around A$35,000 on their next new car and with private sales accounting for just over half of all new car sales annually, this equates to around A$19 billion ($18 billion) annually or about 1.3% of Australia’s annual GDP.”

Roy Morgan Research’s new psychographic classification system finds that of Australians looking to spend more than A$40,000 ($37,977) on their next new car, a little more than 33% belong to the more-affluent leading lifestyle community.

European brands are most popular among this group, with 27% having BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz or Volkswagen on their shopping list.