APE General Discussion

Many 'HC' stocks have this title for a thread given that individual company announcements date.

This is from 'Herald Sun' of Friday 6 January 2023 and has some reasonable, if tempered, optimism:

Toyota’s HiLux has been crowned the country’s best-selling car after notching up a record 64,391 deliveries in 2022.

The HiLux has held the mantle of Australia's favourite vehicle for the past seven years after dethroning the Toyota Corolla.

Ford’s Ranger ute was the second-best selling vehicle last year, followed by the Toyota RAV4.

The results will show that, after a slow start to the year, the Australian car industry has bounced back strongly from the supply issues that plagued it post-Covid.

Australians bought 1,081,429 vehicles in 2022, up three per cent on the previous year.

Sales were particularly strong in the second half of the year, up by more than 15 per cent on 2021.

Toyota was the market leader for the 20th year in a row with 231,050 cars sold.

Toyota’s HiLux has dominated the car market this year. Picture: Thomas Wielecki

Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries chief executive Tony Weber said the market should continue to grow in 2023.

“There’s a lot of pent up demand in the system that needs to be delivered to the market. So I think we’re looking pretty strong going into 2023. Having said that, obviously interest rates have gone up throughout the year. That’s going to have some impact. We have Covid flaring up in China in and that may impact the factories. So like the last three years, there’s still uncertainty in the international environment,” he said.