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  Subaru Australia managing director Nick Senior says the XV will appeal to people who enjoy "expansive lifestyles".

It's a tight race among the top sellers in the compact SUV class.

At the close of 2011, the Subaru Forester and Toyota RAV-4 were separated by just 17 sales with Nissan X-Trail in third, just 1000-odd vehicles behind on 12,089.

Forester has taken the title for the four years, but Subaru is not the biggest brand in the category with just the one model. That title goes to Nissan with its X-Trail and Dualis selling 21,303, followed by Subaru's Forester and Outback on 18,912 and Mitsubishi's ASX and Outlander on 14,029.

The inclusion of XV, targeted at a younger market, should lead to a battle for category dominance between Subaru and Mazda with the CX-5 this year joining the larger CX-7 which sold 9714 in 2011.

Subaru Australia managing director Nick Senior says the XV will appeal to people who enjoy "expansive lifestyles".

"People who are active and enjoy new experiences," he explains.

"They don't want to drive a large SUV, instead they demand car like ride and handling, and convenient cutting edge technology, to enable a fast paced adventurous lifestyle with comfort. XV is a clear indicator of what's to come from Subaru in terms of new technology and design, so it's fair to say we're very excited about our future."

Compact SUVs account for almost half of all SUV sales and 12 per cent of all new vehicle sales. They increased 5.8 per cent to 121,387 last year while the whole market dropped 2.6 per cent to 1,008,437. This category features a strong line-up of 27 international vehicles with one each from the US, UK, Thailand, France and Germany, two from the Czech republic, three from China, six from South Korea and the rest from Japan.