Australia’s most popular SUV in 2025, the Toyota RAV4, slipped outside the list of top-20 best-selling models in February as rivals including the even older Mazda CX-5 took full advantage of dwindling stock.
The RAV4 found just 723 new homes last month (February 2026) – down from 1757 in January and 4405 in February 2025, with a sixth-generation successor due to land in showrooms next month. sales for RAV4 so far this year, 73 per cent of the sale is down 74 percent. Year on year 8 per cent .
However, Toyota Australia says it’s not concerned with the result, given it is running out the existing RAV4 – despite price rises of up to $6000 for the new model and a near-$4000 bump for the entry-level GX variant.
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John Pappas said in a statement ‘We were selling February sales to match our plans for 2026.’ Toyota Australia vice president of sales and marketing, JAPA
As we transitioned to the new RAV4, we expected a good start for this year,’ said it’s great to see most of our current generation Rv4 vehicles sold and customer demand is strong across the Toyota range. Paraphrasingr ’It is.
Notching up 51,947 sales during the full 12 months of 2025, the RAV4 was Toyota’s best-selling model last year ahead of the HiLux ute, as well as Australia’s most popular SUV, placing behind on the top-selling Ford Ranger.
The in-demand mid-size SUV helped Toyota claim the number one spot in Australia for the 23rd year in a row with 239,863 sales, just short of its record of 241,296 figure in 2024 – the most of any auto brand in Australian history.
But as sales plummet for the fifth-generation RAV4, first released in 2018, its Mazda CX-5 arch-rival – the second generation of which dates back to 2016 and is also in runout mode – posted 2099 sales to claim fifth position overall and become the top-selling mid-size SUV last month and so far this year, with sales up 15.4 per cent up year-on-year.
A new, third-generation CX-5 will be available at local showrooms in the second half of 2026 with prices and equipment levels yet to be announced.
Mazda Australia told childcareman.xyz that it is not expecting a sales drop of RAV4-like in the lead-up to the new CX-5’s launch, although the current model has continued to be popular and continues to sell at an ongoing rate (which could cause stock shortages), its solid start to this new year was hard to sustain.
Toyota previously suffered with a delay in the arrival of the new-generation Prado after its arch-rival, the Ford Everest, outsold it for the first time in 2024 – and again last year even after the new model landed.
Across the broader industry, Tesla cited its model changeovers in early 2025 for slower sales of both its Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV across the globe.
In February 2026, Toyota was Australia’s number one auto brand with 13,606 sales nearly doubled of second-placed Mazda’ 6942 and third-top Ford’S 6807.
But yet Toyota suffered the biggest loss of any brand in the top 10, with its 27-year fall, according to Yettuo. A big drop in sales is 8 per cent year-on years, compared to the overall market’s 2 percent decline of 8 Per cent. Last month, 7 per cent dropped for .
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