The Australian car market has not been looking too good for years. Honda Australia is forced to undertake thorough reforms to keep its head above water.
Last year, 1,062,867 new passenger cars were sold in Australia. While that is a solid number in absolute terms, it is 7.8 percent less than the number of new cars sold a year earlier. In fact, 2019 will go down in Australia as the worst sales year since 2011. Sales statistics have been declining in the past 23 months, and Honda is no longer pulling it. In a literal sense.
Honda Australia, which does not produce any cars in its own country, says it has implemented severe reforms as of 1 July next year. The Australian branch of Honda is going to reform its dealer network and says “to prioritize the customer experience” above it
“put away large numbers”. This has an impact on the dealer network, among other things, which is being thinned out considerably. It is not yet known how many Australian dealerships will disappear. Honda also indicates that it will thin out its model range in Australia. Honda currently sells the Jazz, City, Accord, Civic, HR-V, CR-V, Odyssey and NSX. Don’t be surprised if Honda focuses attention on success numbers such as the HR-V, CR-V and Civic and that cars such as the Accord and NSX are being taken off the market.
Honda sold 43,868 new passenger cars in Australia last year, 14.9 percent less than the year before. Toyota is the absolute number one in Australia. Last year, the brand sold 205,766 new cars (-5.2 percent), followed at a distance by Mazda (97,619 units, -12.3 percent) and Hyundai (86,104 units, -8.6 percent).