Is Australia's love affair with utes over? Sales of Toyota HiLux, Ford Ranger, Isuzu D-Max, Nissan Navara and Mitsubishi Triton plummet. And how did Toyota know? | Analysis

Utes have been up there with the most popular vehicles bought by Australians for years, but sales have dropped significantly in 2025, signalling a huge change in buyer behaviour.

In 2024 the sales for just four-wheel drive utes amounted to 203,716, or 16.6 per cent of the total national market, and you can add another two per cent for two-wheel drive utes. 

Two years ago the Ford Ranger ute was crowned the king of sales for 2023, followed by Toyota’s HiLux and the Isuzu D-Max in third place. The year before it was HiLux first then Ranger.  Yes, the most popular cars in Australia weren't cars, they were utes.

But this year utes sales are falling with registrations of workhorses down about 10 per cent, which is the segment's worst result in some time and much worse than the overall market's circa-six per cent downturn.

Just about every brand that makes a ute experience a fall in sales for February. Ford’s Ranger fell by 14.6 per cent year on year, The Isuzu D-Max fell 27.9 per cent, the Nissan Navara was down by 18.4 per cent, the Toyota Hilux was down by 20 per cent and Volkswagen Amarok down by 35 per cent. It wasn't just the established players either. The GWM Ute was down by 14.1 per cent and the LDV T60 was down 36.6 per cent.

The segments that appear to be booming are small and medium SUVs, the Toyota RAV4s and Hyundai Konas of this world. If we are turning away from utes and returning to SUVs then Toyota seems to have known about this a while back.

In January this year, Toyota Australia Vice President Sales and Marketing Sean Hanley, hinted an SUV would be the best selling car and despite new brands the ute market wouldn't grow much.

“If not [this year], I think it'll happen within the next year or two: an SUV will be the number one selling car,” Hanley told us.

 “Because the ute market is going to be so diverse and so competitively saturated in the next two years, that no one car company is going to dominate like it has in the last five years,” elaborated Hanley.

“There's going to be more players. There's only so many buyers – the [ute] segment's not going to astronomically grow,” said Hanley.

That prophecy is playing out as through the first two months of this year the RAV4 has been the best selling vehicle.

The arrival of the Kia Tasman later this year and the recently launched BYD Shark 6 plug-in hybrid could give the ute market a push upwards.