Last March, Holden posted a record-low sales month. In July, Holden bested it with just 3,927 new cars sold, according to Wheels.
The dismal sales performance saw Holden slip to the ninth best-selling brand in Australia. Rival Ford sits in fifth place while Toyota and Mazda still dominate the market. To put Holden’s sub-4,000 sales figure into perspective, Toyota sold nearly as many HiLux pickups than Holden sold of its entire vehicle portfolio.
The 2018 ZB Commodore range and Holden Equinox have failed to spur sales, but the Holden Colorado did see an uptick in sales. Every other Holden vehicle was down in July. Holden’s sales were down a whopping 39.3 percent.
Holden also failed to crack a top-ten best-selling vehicle in July.
The brand brought in former Toyota chief Dave Buttner as its latest chairman and managing director in an attempt to redirect Holden’s path post local manufacturing. Buttner officially started the job August 1 and plans to tour Australia and speak with dealership councils to understand where the company has gone wrong.
Comments
I can tell you one of things they did wrong: killed off the VF Commodore. That was an absolutely outstanding car, and even though I love my 6th gen ZL1, I miss my ’16 SS that I traded… such a GREAT car, and incredibly sad that GM/Holden killed it off.
More sales then I am interested in seeing! Holden gets exactly what they asked for. The Australian people did this to themselves and they have nobody else to blame! Can you say the next GM car company to be sold?
Wow! Guess the plan for Australia is a failure? Who is making these decisions? Case of telling consumers what the y should like and buy. All that history and loyalty flushed away.
GM could sell Holden to PSA, they will fix it!
If that means that I as a GM fan never have to hear the name Holden in reference to GM then I am all for it! Get rid of them, they are not loyal and they make excuses blaming everybody but themselves for the predicament they are in!
GM took all of the kool cars away from Australia as a punishment for being so disloyal to the parent company GM. Now GM will give them fun cars and make the people of Australia pay threw the nose for them which I love to see and hear!
To the people that support holden good riddance! I’d rather make less money and not have you around anymore! Maybe if you supported GM more then I would have more sympathy for you and your supporters!
Brian – your puerile comments just prove what an ignorant tw_t you really are. Thought you’d like to know,
If ignorant you mean tells the truth? Then I have zero issues with it! The Australian people are not loyal and now they are learning what the punishment for that is!
The people of Australia would of had a thriving car business if they had stayed loyal to GM and therefore Holden. But you decided to allow other car manufacturers in and bought them instead of your home grown cars from holden!
If you had not ran to the competition you would still have a automotive industry but now you dont!
That’s truth! It must be hard to except!
This Brian has really strange conceptions of the relations of a profit making business with its customers.
Brian sees the business not as a profit making venture, but as an ailing charity which has to be supported by alms, or as a religious institution, a church, which is supported by loyal believers by regular dues payment.
The reality is different. The customers buy what they deem the best offer. A “brand loyalty” might play a role in that one would look first at offers of a business using that brand, but not in buying something expensive out of mercy for the seller. Exceptions are low value items like a set of postcards “painted with the mouth” you might buy from an asylum for handicapped.
That said, I don’t think that the cars offered by GM under the Holden brand are crappy and there is no need for mercy towards GM.
It is just that the way the switch from the Zeta based Commodore to the E2XX based Commodore was coupled with closing the manufacturing on Australia. I consider this to be a marketing error.
But fact is, automobile manufacturing is ending completely in Australia, not only by GM. As I understand, GM was the last to close their manufacturing after Ford and Toyota.
Brian – In that case, Brian who exactly was being “punished” when GM went bust and had to be bailed out by the US taxpayer? And who is being punished today with 18% of new car buyers in the US who choose GM cars and the 82% who buy from someone else?
You are correct, the truth is hard to accept – I find it very hard to accept that GM totally screwed up Holden, massively mismanaged Vauxhall/Opel then gave it away and sent GM Korea down the toilet all completed in under two years.
I’m a GM’s fan but I’m disappointed to see that they reduce their world footprint because GM is unable to improve what is essential: The reliability, the customer satisfaction. I’m sure that as Opel you could give Holden to an other automakers to manage, they will do better. Holden have no more the apology for producing in australia and their products haven’t the good reputation of japanese cars. The GM car has a poor reputation in the world! They are goner!
They should have sold the Zeta platform to Guido Dumarey, so at least somebody could keep making it.
The big problem is that Holden no longer have their own vehicle. They’re now flogging off crappy GM vehicles with a Holden badge. Not too many Aussies are going to be loyal to a 2nd rate company that sells 2nd rate vehicles.
The quicker Holden fails and GM get their rubbish out of Australia the better.
The “GM vehicles” Holden is currently “flogging” are not at all crappy.
The entire model range is either mediocre or above average… let’s not let hyperbole get in the way of a decent discussion.
This is the result of Mary Barra’s “America First” policy :
Spark – gone.
Barina – gone.
Astra sedan – gone.
Astra hatch – gone by 2019.
Captiva – gone.
Equinox – gone by 2019.
Commodore – ?
Colorado/Trailblazer – ?
It is patently clear to everyone that GM is going to quit the Australian market. No one wants an orphan.
This is exactly right.
Half of the current model range has either been discontinued or is about to be axed (Captiva and Barina) and replaced with new models that have much higher prices. This is resulting in much less volume.
It does feel like GM is going to pull out. It’s not a matter of if, but probably when. Unless they plan to hold out selling much less volume, but the dealers will go broke in the interim or lose complete interest in the brand altogether, if they haven’t already.
The experiment with the Holden name on an Opel does not seem to be working. The Australian public know when they are having one put over on them (conned). Now that the French have bought Opel they will try and sell us French Holdens. How ridiculous does that sound? Don’t try to con us, just put the manufacturers name on the car. Give credit where it is due and if it is any good it will sell.
@Rob:
I am convinced that after the expiration of the life cyle of the current models (Insignia, Astra, Cascada), GM will no more source Buicks and Holdens from Opel factories.
And please accept the fact that the time is gone long ago that the name on the factory entry is the same name on the products churned out inside.
And third, I think that the problem for the Holden brand is the coupling of ending assembly in Australia with replacing the old Commodore by the new ZB Commodore as import. They should have uncoupled the two events by first moving the Commodore assembly line to the underutilized Gunsan factory of GM Korea, and only a year later replacing the old Commodore from Korea by a new one from Europe.
Costly from the production standpoint, but a useful marketing expense. People like to be cheated.
holdens own fault for producing poorly designed cars for last twenty years,simular faults through the years.
GM becomes regional company – only cash cows U.S. and China market is actual target – do not care about the rest of of the world. Traditional market like Europe or Australia is ready to be linked to virtual trash can. GM only cares about money for its management and shareholders. Costumers satisfaction, tradition or ecological aspects are on the last position. Cheap crappy products for a lot of money is new GM philosophy.
If the people of Australia would of continued to support holden and therefore GM then car production would of never stopped. The Australian people turned their back on their home town car company and now they get what they deserve. No industry, no kool cars without sky high prices.
Brian seems to think that GM is a charity which is dependent on alms offered as sacrifice by merciful souls.
Nope, GM is a company for profit and if there is a area of the world who will not support GM then it should be GMs choice to move on and let them fend for themselves!
If the people of Australia do not want to support Holden then GM as a parent company should just shut them down or sale them to get them off of GMs books!
This is really hilarious: Brian on the one hand acknowledges that GM is a “company for profit”, and on the other, that it is an entity needing support, for mercy or for what reasons.
Man, get your head straight!
Yes GM is a for profit company and if you support the company then there will always be profits.
Your talking to a guy that has only owned Chevy cars and trucks!
I dont cross shop for cars and trucks! I only shop with GM.
When a for-profit company does need SUPPORT like a not-for-profit charity to make profit, then it is not worth living.
Everybody who is buying a car or whatever from a for-profit company will try to pay as low as possible a price, and certainly not want to SUPPORT that profit-making entity by paying more than absolutely unavoidable.
This person named Brian is really completely confused in his mind.
No, the capitalist market is not a collection of charities and exchange of alms, it is a pool of sharks trying to eat each other.
So by that logic, if the US people had supported Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer and Oldsmobile instead of imports they would still be in the GM range?
Following the sale of Opel-Vauxhall to PSA in 2017, GM also took the dumbfounding and very short-sighted decision to exit central and southern Africa, along with the Indian sub-continent, all of which drive on the left, ie. in RHD vehicles. This leaves GM with Australia and New Zealand as its sole RHD markets, which together now shift less than 100,000 units a year of all model lines combined! In a single stroke, GM cut itself off from 35% of the global driving populace. Sheer genius … NOT!
It is inconceivable to think that going forward GM will engineer circa 10 model lines as RHD for Australia and New Zealand alone. Very sadly Holden is damaged goods and is pretty much done for and when the current model ranges reach their lifecycle end they will not be replaced.
Older Australian and New Zealand readers will remember a time back in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s when Vauxhall Crestas, Veloxes, Victors, Vivas and Viscounts were assembled locally by GM in both those countries. Also Rob, the original 1966 Holden Torana was a re-badged Vauxhall Viva, and the 1978 first Holden Commodore was based on the Opel Rekord/Commodore E, so re-badging is not unfamiliar to Aussie and Kiwi markets.
With regard to selling the brand to PSA … and re-badging O-V’s as Holdens, that may be an option. But if I were a betting man, Tavares will wait for Holden to fold (4 years max) and without taking on any legacy debt, pensions, etc., PSA will launch O-V properly across Australasia under the Vauxhall brand. Thanks to GM and its infernal mindless meddling, Opel too is now damaged goods in the region.
Is Holden unaware of the more than likely buying public’s negative perception of a domestic manufacturer that was poorly mismanaged for years on end to the extent that local jobs were lost.
Added is that what remains is an organization that has been reduced to being a funnel for rebadged imported vehicles.
I understand that the GM-Holden design studio in Melbourne is still working. It is one of the best within GM, methinks.
Understood but how much does the fact that a Holden Design Studio is remaining impact upon the vehicle buying public opinion? They’re not looking to purchase a car from a design studio.
‘I want a car’ but not from a company that caused loss of jobs, received Government assistance multiple times and was still poorly managed and now rebadges imported cars.
All those companies cause loss of jobs. Every capitalist business is for profit, and will dismiss workers when the company sees fit.
If you make that the primary criterion for buying something, you will die of hunger, because you can’t buy not even any foodstuff.
Deal with it, that there is no more any automobile industry in Australia. The government stopped subsidising the for-profit automobile businesses.
What Walkinshaw is doing to convert US build cars from left-hand-steering to right-hand-steering is handicraft, not industry.
Non-existence, inconsistent customer service based on VIN numbers, example VF MyLink locked, with no further development of system software. If GM won’t provide service, the least they should do is open it up to the public domain. No free development kit, no APIs, no documentation, no mirroring, no CarPlay option, even though CarPlay was designed many years ago for the QNX operating system. VIN dictates whether there is a system update or not, inconsistent versions of maps/alerts between VINs for the VF generation among owners. Other manufacturers offer information on how to get free map updates. Technically the best real rear-wheel drive Commodore, but opportunity to entice future customers squandered by a culture of corporate greed and knowledge narcissism.
Get rid of the Holden Brand & Badge as quickly as possible & replace it with the Chevrolet Brand & Badge.
The Holden Brand & Badge are lifeless & boring to the Australian public now.
We aren’t Brits or Europeans, we’re Aussies we like big cars, V8s & Auto-Transmissions, Chevrolet would fit like a glove here!
There’s a long list awesome vehicles that have been produced here in Australia, regardless what Naysayer’s may say.
Just try buying a classic car these days. They are worth heaps!!! Why? Because they are awesome!
Just look up Top Gear videos on You Tube on their opinion of the Aussie V8’s. Like a kid in a candy store!!!
Bang for your buck, Australia has the best in the world I believe the saying goes.
Football, meat pies and Holden cars, I believe was the motto.
The Aussie ute has been a stable of most demographics of our society, from tradies, businessmen, sporting people, motorsport, to even the average Aussie bloke or Gal.
We must ask ourselves who we are as a country and what our values are?
We should be proud of what we produce here and be an example to the rest of the world.
We were regarded as the lucky country. Why?
Well for a start, the people who built the cars could actually own one.
Subsidising local Industry should not be a problem for crucial industry as Large scale manufacturing plants are essential for national security as they are often used to produce armaments and vehicles during times of war.
A nation should be able to support itself in its basic functions.
A saying goes, If a flower doesn’t bloom,
Fix the environment in which it grows,
Not the flower.
Australians are sometimes regarded as racist, but why is that?
Maybe traditionally we don’t like other nations who treat their people like crap, hence that’s often the pretext we are sent to war, to protect freedom.
The biggest atrocities are often committed in the name of somebody else.
A company is made up of many individuals, so when we hear that a company has decided THIS or a company has decided THAT, unless all the workers have had a vote on the policy, then the decision was implemented by the few and not the company as a whole.
I’m sure there are many Aussie family’s who have dedicated their life to produce the products we love and enjoy.
Just like when your computer goes bad, you can go back and re-set to when It was good.
Re-opening the factories would be a good start.
For now, the USA is our next viable option.
Help our nation here and help others to do the same.
it dont take a scientist to work out what went wrong HOLDEN dont understand loyalty they also basicly re badged a opal leaving australia was the worst move they ever did and now they are learning one big lesson this is the demise of holden they will not survive and dont deserve to