Hopefully this is just a blip.

The chart on new vehicle sales is a good one. A little misleading though given 245m export sales not captured in there (down 8.7%).

Looks like a big surge in sales at the EOFY this year in the typical categories that ARB bits are affixed to.

https://www.whichcar.com.au/news/vfacts-june-2023-4x4-results

Thanks in part to the end of the financial year, a total of 124,926 new vehicles were sold in Australia in June 2023, which is a massive 25 per cent increase compared to June 2022 where 99,974 vehicles found new owners.

Breaking it down further, each segment showed considerable growth in June 2023 compared to the same time last year: passenger vehicles (+10.6%); SUVs (+31.5%): and LCVs (+20.9%).

We have also seen a bunch of recent next-gen model in these categories which I assume may also release a bit of extra pent up demand (e.g. see the Ranger vs Hilux details from the article above). eg. New Prado, New 70 Series Landcruiser, New VW Amarok, more stupidly oversize Yank-Tank utes. I wonder how much of the drop in the OEM sales (down 18.5%) could also be attributed to these companies clearing out their stock ahead of the new models coming.

DISC: Held IRL, not in Strawman (as its not small cap) ... don't have any ARB bits on my Landrover Defender 90 (but I do covet their new $75K EarthCamper)