August was the first month when the number of sales of Ford Ranger vehicle managed to exceed the sales that made for Toyota’s Hilux model.
In more concrete terms, there were about 2096 Ford models that have been sold, in comparison with the 1956 models from Toyota’s Hilux series. This has been the third month in the past three years when Toyota’s sales have been exceeded by another brand. Last December, Mitsubishi’s Triton was the one that attained the front place. Nonetheless, back in January 2012, this place was overtaken by Nissan Navarra.
Ford won a battle, but apparently it didn’t win the war
It has been more than a decade since Ford has won a battle in the war of sales with Toyota. They are now utterly savouring their victory, but all these celebrations won’t last for long.
Everyone in Australia knows that Hilux is among favourites when it comes to power and abilities. As a result, it has preserved itself the leading role in the year-to-date sales, which were shaped by a number of 23,316 in comparison with the Rover’s 18,253. This is quite a significant difference and, according to specialists, Ford won’t be able to equal Toyota’s numbers.
Statistically, Ford’s celebrations won’t last long
Why would Ford’s celebrations be short-lived? Probably because Toyota is planning to release the new Hilux model next month, thus an increase in sales is actually anticipated to occur.
The $19,990 Hilux trade utes have been cleared out by Toyota and, instead, a claim based on the Federal Government’s tax incentive for small businesses of a one-off deduction on the tools of trade has been issued.
The Japanese car manufacturer has been one of the few that had a suitable vehicle to offer vehicles under the price range of $20,000 and the announcement made regarding to this tax caught them off guard.
Tony Cramb, sales and marketing director, declared that by the time June came, they simply ran out of models. He also added the fact that predicting what the government was about to do was more than impossible, so they weren’t prepared at all.
Therefore, the official announcements did nothing else but stimulate the demand for that particular model. As a result, it was only a matter of months until it could no longer be found on the market to purchase.
As for Ranger’s victory, Tony Cramb also added the fact that the market offers a place for everyone.
It is now the third year in a row when the sales of the Toyota’s Hilux model have been in a continuous, imminent decline. They are most likely to end up the year with less than 10% than the peak they have managed to reach in 2008, when the number of sales was somewhere around 43,000. Toyota also declared that they have managed to sell about 320,000 cars belonging to this ongoing model.