A fall of 5.6 per cent in new vehicle sales for the past year in Western Australia, to 100,234, takes to nearly 22 per cent the reduction in annual sales since 2012.
Sales have fallen every year in that time period, from 128,005 in 2012, to 125,544 in 2013 , 115,343 in 2014 and 106,188 in 2015.
December results indicate the numbers won’t be picking up any time soon, either, with sales of 8,026 about 10.5 per cent lower than in the same month in 2015.
Both SUV and passenger sales fell in the month compared with 2015, with SUVs down 13.9 per cent and passenger vehicles 8.7 per cent.
SUV sales were up 0.7 per cent for the year as a whole, however, to 40,000 while passenger cars were down 13.2 per cent to 36,998.
Toyota was once again the state’s most popular brand last year, with just fewer than 21,000 vehicles sold, down 3.1 per cent year on year.
But the December performance for Toyota was weak, with sales of 1,735 about 21.6 per cent lower than the same month in 2015.
Hyundai was the second most popular brand, with 10,733 sales in the 12 months, a fall of of 8.5 per cent.
Of the major marques, Ford bucked the downward trend, up 10.9 per cent for the year to 7,683.
One notable positive in the numbers was that sales of heavy commercial vehicles in December were up 9.5 per cent in WA compared with the same time in 2015, at 287.
Across the whole year however, commercial sales were down 13.2 per cent to 2,670.
