For such a large country in terms of land mass, Australia doesn’t have a whole lot of people – and nor do many buy cars.
In 2025, 1.2 million new vehicles were delivered in Australia, a new record for the nation, though it pales in comparison to the 2 million new registrations in the UK, and 16.3 million deliveries in the US.
Despite being such a relatively small market, Australia has among the highest number of brands with around 60 currently operating locally, and even more to come.
To top it off, Toyota alone accounts for approximately 20 per cent of sales in the market, while the top 10 brands combined share almost 70 per cent of all deliveries.
Speaking to Torquecafe, Andrew Humberstone – who is about to vacate his role as Nissan Oceania managing director after two years – said Australia is undoubtedly the most competitive market in the automotive world.
“The next big thing is what takes time is the product portfolio, because the mid-term plan is five years, and we were looking beyond that and saying ‘how do we read the market?’,” Humberstone said, referring to Nissan’s Oceanian rejuvenation strategy.
“Especially here, [the] most competitive market in the world, I don’t even debate that anymore. I state that as a fact.
“So many products, so much fluidity. To be a survivor in this market, you have to be agile and you have to have the right product portfolio, and know who your competitors are.
“There’s going to be a lot of change between that top six, that top 15 that are doing 900,000 [deliveries a year] and the balance doing 300,000 [deliveries a year]. There’s going to be a lot of migration and movement.
“I think there’ll be winners and losers for sure.”
In 2025, Nissan dropped out of the top 10 best-selling car brands in Australia, slipping to 12th overall after deliveries fell by 21.6 per cent to 35,511 for the year. In the first two months of 2026, it has fallen further to 15th place with year-on-year deliveries down 44.7 per cent.
It’s not alone and certainly won’t be in the long term, especially as more brands from China arrive in Australia and roll out a wide range of products. Even last year, the newly arrived BYD Shark 6 out-sold Nissan’s X-Trail SUV, with no Nissan model finishing in the top 20 sales race.
Nissan is also cutting down its product lineup in Australia, this week axing the Juke and Pathfinder while delaying the next-generation Leaf.
It has said it wants to add a front-wheel drive hybrid X-Trail to the mix though, while the Navara is soon rolling out into showrooms, albeit now as a rebadged Mitsubishi Triton – only going on sale in Australia and New Zealand.
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