Toyota Australia Targets Record Fourth Quarter to Salvage 2026 Sales Figures

Toyota Australia has set an ambitious objective to achieve a record-breaking fourth quarter in a bid to surpass 220,000 total vehicle deliveries for the 2026 calendar year. Despite experiencing a significant downturn in volume over the first nine months of the year, the Japanese automaker anticipates an influx of fresh stock will allow it to retain its position as Australia's best-selling car brand for the 31st consecutive year.

To the end of September 2026, Toyota leads the Australian market with 152,944 year-to-date deliveries. This places the brand comfortably ahead of its closest rival, BYD, which has recorded 76,614 sales over the same period, followed by Ford, Kia, and Mazda. While BYD closed the gap significantly in June—coming within 243 vehicles of Toyota's monthly total—it has not matched that proximity in the months since.

However, Toyota's market dominance masks a distinct year-on-year volume contraction. The brand's 2026 year-to-date result represents a 15.9 per cent decline (28,865 fewer vehicles) compared to the same period in 2025. This stands in stark contrast to the broader Australian new-car market, which has grown by 2 per cent overall in 2026, fueled largely by surging demand for electric vehicles—a segment where Toyota currently registers only a few hundred monthly sales.

The Mathematical Challenge: Q4 Sales Targets

Based on its current trajectory, Toyota is naturally pacing toward roughly 204,000 deliveries for the year. To achieve its revised 220,000-unit goal, the brand must deliver 67,056 vehicles over the final three months of 2026. This requires an average of more than 22,000 deliveries per month through October, November, and December.

If successful, it would eclipse Toyota's previous fourth-quarter record of 66,179 vehicles set in 2020. The company had previously targeted an even higher 230,000 units for 2026, which would have required an average of 25,685 monthly deliveries through to the end of the year. Toyota's all-time annual sales record stands at 241,296 vehicles, achieved in 2024.

Supply Chain Factors and Model Changeovers

Toyota attributes the 2026 sales deficit primarily to supply constraints surrounding major model changeovers, rather than a softening in consumer demand. The delayed arrival of the new RAV4 mid-size SUV in early 2026, coupled with the rollout of the new-generation HiLux ute launched in December 2025, heavily impacted first-quarter throughput.

First-quarter deliveries dropped 23.0 per cent year-on-year, falling from 57,797 units in 2025 to 44,490 units in 2026. The third quarter also showed a decline, with 57,803 deliveries compared to 63,181 in Q3 2025. Recent monthly figures indicate a downward trend, dropping from 20,409 units in July to 17,682 units in September.

Toyota Australia Vice President of Sales, John Pappas, noted that the brand's order banks remain exceptionally healthy. "It's not really an issue of demand, it's actually an issue of getting the cars – logistics and getting the cars shipment-wise," Pappas stated.

As stock levels began to normalize mid-year, the RAV4 surged to top the national sales charts in both April and July, displacing the Ford Ranger.

Customer wait times, which were heavily extended at the beginning of the year, have now been compressed to between three and six months. Toyota, with support from its Japanese headquarters, is currently working to reduce wait times for its highest-volume models to a maximum of three months. Furthermore, recent brand marketing campaigns indicate that a significant volume of fresh stock is already arriving at dealerships and is available for immediate delivery.