Peak ute has already passed: Australian ute sales further decline as potential 2025 Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger buyers now look elsewhere

Ute sales in Australia have been ballooning out for years now, but it seems the bubble for this has already popped following consecutive months of declining sales.

In May 2025, sales of pick-up and cab-chassis 4x2, pick-up and cab-chassis 4x4, and even pick-up and cab-chassis over $100,000 were all down compared to the same month last year and year-on-year.

This means not only sales for Thai-made utes like the Ford Ranger and Isuzu D-Max, among others, are down, but also larger, typically North American-made full-size pickups like the Chevrolet Silverado and Ford F-150 are down.

It’s the second month in a row where all the ute segments have experienced a drop in sales both year-on-year and compared to the same month last year.

This follows a downward trend for overall new vehicle sales. It’s expected new car sales in 2025 won’t beat the record high of 2024.

Utes that have experienced some of the sharpest downturns in sales year-to-date (YTD) include the Ford F-150 (534 sales, down 35.5 per cent), Ford Ranger 4x2 (1299 sales, down 47.3 per cent), KGM SsangYong Musso (882 sales, down 41.8 per cent), Nissan Navara 4x2 (162 sales, down 67.1 per cent), Ram 3500 (5 sales, down 81.5 per cent), and the Volkswagen Amarok (2434 sales, down 37.8 per cent).

Sales of utes like the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux gained a considerable amount of popularity during COVID times and when the instant asset write-off scheme threshold was higher.

Utes have historically always been popular in the business and fleet space in Australia, but over the last decade or so they’ve become more popular for private buyers.

This is evidenced by the Ford Ranger, which is more popular with private buyers in 4x4 guise.

The Ranger and HiLux have been tussling for the top position for the better side of a decade now, with the former claiming the podium for the last two years.

As previously reported, Toyota Australia Vice President Sales, Marketing and Franchise Operations, Sean Hanley, said the dominance of dual-cab utes will come to an end this year and an SUV could be the best-selling car for the first time ever.

This SUV could be the Toyota RAV4.

In May, a total of 4003 examples of the RAV4 were sold. Despite this being down 27.4 per cent on the same month last year, it was still the third best-selling car for the month, behind only the HiLux and Ranger.

“We already know that the number of ute models available to Australian buyers will expand rapidly,” said Mr Hanley back in January.

“They’ll be competing for an overall ute market that is likely to remain steady, which suggests that the average sales per model will come down as a result.”

“It may be, and I stress maybe, that an SUV could rise to the top of the national sales charts in the next year or two, and just maybe that SUV will be a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid.”

Toyota has since unveiled a new-generation version of the RAV4 which is set to arrive locally in the first half of 2026.

At this stage it’s unclear whether this will impact the potential of the RAV4 achieving the sales title in Australia this year, though at some point production of the current model will wind down to make way for the new model.