A new year for new car deliveries in Australia has started with a fifth straight month of year-on-year growth, following a record 2025.
In January 2026, 87,753 new vehicles were delivered locally, a small increase of just 0.1 per cent on the opening month of 2025, however that was down 2.4 per cent on the year prior.
The Ford Ranger carried on its winning ways from 2025 – where it became the best-selling vehicle for the third consecutive year – by topping the market with 3403 deliveries, beating the 2800 deliveries of the Toyota HiLux.
However, both utes experienced significant drops compared to January last year, with Ranger deliveries down 20 per cent, while the HiLux was down 15.2 per cent.
A mildly updated Ranger lineup is due in showrooms in the coming months, though it’ll lose its bi-turbo four-cylinder diesel engine, long one of its most popular and readily available powertrains.
The HiLux meanwhile is undergoing the changeover to a new generation, after the latest iteration of the popular ute was launched late last year.
Unlike the majority of 2025 where the Toyota RAV4 closely tailed or even beat the ute duo, last month the SUV barely scraped into the top 10 with only 1757 deliveries, as the current generation model is in run-out ahead of the arrival of a new version in the near future.
According to Toyota Australia’s new Vice President Sales, Marketing and Franchise Operations, John Pappas, it’s situation normal at the nation’s most popular carmaker.
“As we transition to these new-generation vehicles, we’re seeing a temporary softening in deliveries compared with January last year,” Pappas said in a media release.
“This is expected and simply reflects the timing of model updates. Importantly, demand remains strong across the Toyota line-up.”
Instead, another SUV sat behind the Ranger and HiLux, with the Mazda CX-5 – also approaching the end of its current generation – sitting in third spot with 2289 deliveries, only 65 examples ahead of the Chery Tiggo 4.
The remainder of the top 10 sales chart was made up of SUVs, except the Isuzu D-Max which slotted into eighth place overall, behind the Mitsubishi Outlander, Ford Everest and Hyundai Kona, but ahead of the GWM Haval Jolion and the aforementioned RAV4.
In brand land, Toyota retained its dominant position as the market leader with 14,310 deliveries, however this was down 22.3 per cent on January 2025, mainly due to the RAV4 supply slump.
Mazda (7692 deliveries) and Kia (6600 deliveries) vaulted past Ford (6616 deliveries) for the podium spots, while Hyundai (5856 deliveries) rounded out the top five.
The battle between Chinese brands continues to be hot, as BYD ended the month in sixth with 5001 deliveries, just ahead of GWM (4509 deliveries), with Japanese marque Mitsubishi (4347 deliveries) splitting Chery (3780 deliveries) and MG (3123 deliveries).
A sharp rise in deliveries of PHEVs (5161, up 170.5 per cent), EVs (7409, up 93.3 per cent) and traditional hybrids (15,131, up 2.0 per cent even with a bad month for the RAV4) means petrol and diesel vehicle sales have continued to fall.
Last month, 33,144 petrol vehicles were delivered, a year-on-year decline of 14.7 per cent, while diesel deliveries dropped by 3.7 per cent to 24,439 vehicles.
Discussion about this post