Used car sales rise in strong start to 2024

Used car sales were up in the first month of 2024 and resale values are holding steady.

That’s according to the Australian Automotive Dealer Association’s January 2024 Automotive Insights Report, created in partnership with used car market data firm AutoGrab.

“Despite the continued tightening in cost of living pressures, customers have increased their purchases of used cars in January with an increase of 7.3 per cent in cars sold compared to December 2023,” said AADA CEO James Voortman.

“The market appears to have bounced back after the holiday period, and continued strong supply of new cars has had a flow on effect in the availability of used cars in the market.”

A total of 282,713 vehicles were listed for sale, with 181,612 vehicles sold during that period.

Petrol and diesel vehicles accounted for the lion’s share – 96 per cent – of the market, though hybrid sales were up by 2.7 per cent.

Electric vehicle (EV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) sales declined by 9.4 and 4.5 per cent, respectively, though Mr Voortman says the relatively low volume of such vehicles listed for sale means the market for them remains volatile month to month.

As in December 2023, the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux took out the top spots, echoing the new car market.

Used cars took an average of 47.7 days to sell, down from 50.9 in December 2023.

After some recent declines, retained values have held mostly steady, while some popular 2-4 year old used cars are worth more on average today than when they were sold new.

These include the Suzuki Jimny, which has an average retained value percentage of 135.7 per cent, as well as the Toyota 86 (108.1 per cent), Yaris Cross (109.1 per cent), Yaris (106.8 per cent), LandCruiser (106.5 per cent) and RAV4 (100.8 per cent).

The average retained value for a 2-4 year old passenger car was 87 per cent. For SUVs, this average was 80.9 per cent, while for utes it was 83.8 per cent.

The report’s figures are based on data about the number of used and dealer demonstrator cars listed as for sale around Australia at the start of the month, which are compared with the number of those listings that have been taken down at the end.

The AADA and AutoGrab offer the following definitions:

• For Sale: Level of available used and demo cars listed online by dealers and private sellers nationally at the time of reporting. AutoGrab processes and de-duplicates listings to identify and eliminate repetitions, ensuring that vehicles listed across multiple platforms are counted only once.
• Sales: Total vehicles delisted from online marketplaces, serving as a close proxy to actual sales and recorded monthly. The delisting count also reflects unique vehicles, as AutoGrab processes and deduplicates listings to identify and eliminate repetitions, ensuring that vehicles listed across multiple platforms are counted only once.

Best-selling used cars

Overall used car sales figures for January 2024

Of the 282,713 vehicles listed for sale in January 2024, 57.4 per cent of these were from private sellers and 42.6 per cent were listed by dealers.

The total number of vehicles for sale increased by 2.3 per cent from December 2023, though actual sales increased by 7.3 per cent to 181,612.

Sales by vehicle type

Passenger cars accounted for 41 per cent of all vehicles sold in January 2024, a sharp contrast with the new car market where they accounted for just 18.3 per cent of the market.

SUVs sat in second place with 70,252 sales. However, if you look just at vehicles listed for sale but not sold, SUVs were in the lead with 117,182 ahead of 100,566 ads for passenger cars.

Sales of passenger cars were up by 7.4 per cent, while SUVs were up by 7.0 per cent, utes by 7.2 per cent, and vans/buses by 9.7 per cent.

Sales by fuel type

MORE: Australia’s best-selling used cars in December 2023
MORE: Australia’s used car sales results for 2023 revealed