Medium SUV sales growth tracked, top sellers over a decade

Australians took delivery of around 1.74 million new medium SUVs over the past 10 years, across the mainstream and luxury segments.

Annualised mid-sized SUV sales spiked from 119,464 units in 2013 to a record 216,151 units in 2022, with each increase coming steadily despite two years of COVID-related stock shortages.

This equates to growth in medium SUV market share from 10.5 per cent to 20.0 per cent – sufficient to make this the most popular of all vehicle segments last year, ahead of 4×4 utes.

This near-doubling is explained by the fact the new car market has actually failed to grow over the past decade.

Market-wide sales tallied in 2013 (1,136,227) were actually 4.8 per cent greater than what we saw moved across 2022 (1,081,429), the year in which medium SUVs set their high-water mark.

As you'd expect, the dramatic increase in medium SUV uptake has attracted a raft of new nameplates over the past decade, adding competitiveness. However the majority of these new products sit within the high-margin luxury end of the market.

Between 2013 and 2022, the number of individual medium SUV nameplates classified as mainstream (VFACTS calls them Medium SUV < $60,000) on sale only oscillated between 17 nameplates and 24 nameplates.

Core vehicles in this segment include top-sellers such as the Toyota RAV4, Mazda CX-5, Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage, Mitsubishi Outlander, Nissan X-Trail, and Volkswagen Tiguan – among myriad others.

But over the same period, the number of luxury medium SUV nameplates (dubbed Medium SUV > $60,000 in VFACTS) over the same 10-year period spiked from just five offerings in 2013, to 20 offerings in 2022.

Core vehicles in this segment include the Mercedes-Benz GLC, BMW X3, Audi Q5, Volvo XC60, and Lexus NX.

We've also collated annual sales since 2013 to find out what the top-selling medium SUVs are. The results are, to be honest, not that surprising.

Content originally sourced from: CarExpert.com.au