Australia’s ute market has continued to grow in recent years, growing from approximately a dozen to almost 20 models in just a few short years, with more vehicles on the horizon.
This, combined with a boom in SUV sales, has previously led one of the heads of Toyota Australia to previously claim we had reached “peak ute”, thoughts backed up last week by Nissan’s local top executive.
However, the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux are continuing to battle it out as the best-selling vehicle in Australia this year, a title exclusively held by the two utes since 2017, with an SUV yet to claim top spot across 12 months.
Speaking to local media at the launch of the Ranger Super Duty, Ford Australia CEO Andrew Birkic said the local “love affair” with utes – a concept pioneered here by the Blue Oval brand – is far from over.
“The segment has been relatively stable for some time.
Australians have a love affair with utes, because they deliver in spades. They’re practical.
“When I was a kid, if your dad had a ute it was a 4×2, it was a real workhorse, and they dropped you off around the corner. These days, if you’ve got a [Ranger] Raptor, you want to be dropped out the front of the school. Utes are just cool.
“I think there’s a very different profile, and I think they will continue to offer tremendous value. In a lot of cases the residual values are good, so there’s a lot of secondhand [vehicles available], a lot of tradies who want a Ranger as a third-year apprentice.
“We think there’s stability in that segment, and at the end of the day we think this [Ranger Super Duty] will draw from multiple segments.”
Between January and October 2025, 198,999 4×2 and 4×4 utes (excluding the larger American pickups) had been sold in Australia, accounting for almost 20 per cent of the market, and representing a minor increase over the same period last year.
While Ranger sales are down by 12.5 per cent (with 46,452 deliveries in the first 10 months of the year), it remains the best-selling vehicle so far, just edging out the Toyota HiLux.
The Ranger has been Australia’s most popular vehicle in 2023 and 2024, with a potential third straight annual victory marking a historic occasion for Ford.
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