Plunging Aussie sales key to Holden’s fate
The decision to scrap Holden comes on the back of falling sales, with the number of new vehicles it sold in Australia plunging 29 per cent in the past year.
In New Zealand, the brand’s sales figures fell eight per cent in 2019 compared to figures for 2018.
While Holden’s trading in New Zealand climbed during most of the past decade, numbers started to slip after 2017 when the marque stopped manufacturing vehicles in Australia.
Its annual sales figures here peaked in that year at 14,446 but fell to 12,044 in 2019, a drop of 17 per cent. In 2018, Holden sold 13,071 new vehicles in New Zealand.
However, in Australia the drop in Holden sales has been spectacular. The tally of 43,176 sales in 2019 was its lowest since 1954, when Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed it sold 39,600 cars before climbing to 44,500 in 1955.
The 2019 sales result was the ninth year in a row of decline for Holden and the marque was struggling to stay inside the top 10 models despite having never been outside the top two from its inception in 1948, to the end of 2014.
Holden slipped to third in 2015, was fourth for the next two years and slipped to sixth place in 2018 and 10th place in 2019. Between 2017 and 2018, its sales plunged by 33 per cent.
The last increase in annual sales across the ditch for Holden came when numbers rose 11 per cent from 119,568 units in 2009 to 132,923 in 2010. The following year sales fell by five per cent and its popularity has waned since.
In the mid-1950s, the brand accounted for one-in-three new vehicles sold in Australia and by 1958 every second car sold was a Holden. Today it accounts for just four new cars out of every 100 sold across the Tasman.
Holden new-vehicle sales figures
In New Zealand
2010: 7,799
2011: 8,052
2012: 9,446
2013: 11,737
2014: 13,455
2015: 14,028
2016: 14,362
2017: 14,446
2018: 13,071
2019: 12,044
In Australia
2010: 132,923
2011: 126,095
2012: 114,665
2013: 112,059
2014: 106,092
2015: 102,951
2016: 94,308
2017: 90,306
2018: 60,751
2019: 43,176
