KIA, Toyota and Mitsubishi have emerged as the biggest winners in Australia’s new-vehicle sales race for the first half of 2017, between them shifting an additional 16,539 units compared with this time last year.

By contrast, Holden, Hyundai and Nissan lost a combined 14,012 sales in the same timeframe.

In percentage terms, Kia’s stonking 35 per cent year-to-date growth spurt puts it firmly at the top of the sales increase by volume table, its 28,735 deliveries adding a whopping 7449 units to the tally achieved between January and June 2016.

These kinds of percentage increases are usually reserved for fledgling brands with tiny sales figures such as LDV, which experienced a 40.7 per cent increase in demand for its Chinese-made vans and people-movers in the first half but still only shifted 1103 of them.

Market leader Toyota, being four times larger than Kia in terms of Australian sales volume, achieved 6682 additional units from its 6.5 per cent upswing.

Mitsubishi also grew by 6.5 per cent, with 2408 more sales than the 37,265 it achieved in the first half of last year.

This put it just ahead of a resurgent Honda that managed an increase of 2198 units, up 11.2 per cent with 21,831 deliveries.

At the other end of the scale is Holden, which dropped 5897 sales in a 12.3 per cent plunge to 42,113 units.

Small consolation to Aussie GM executives will be that Hyundai, once the rising star of the sales charts, lost 4531 sales for a total of 49,819 units in an 8.3 per cent drop.

The figures are also going the wrong way for Nissan, which was down 3593 sales, representing a 10.6 per cent drop over the 33,733 units it delivered in the first half of 2016.

Luxury brand BMW has struggled this year with 2911 fewer sales to the end of June (marking an 18.5 per cent decline), with just 12,843 units on the scoreboard.

Jeep was also hit hard in the first half, losing 2459 sales for a 35 per cent slump that saw the US SUV-maker sell just 4565 units. Between June 2014 and June 2015 Jeep would reliably sell more than that in just two months.

On the other hand, it was champagne corks for Subaru, growing its car parc by 1901 vehicles with a 7.9 per cent rise and 25,962-unit total.

Mercedes-Benz looks to have benefited while BMW – and Audi – have experienced downturns this year, with the three-pointed-star brand up 1637 units (7.9 per cent) across its entire passenger car, SUV and light commercial range.

After a long period of growth, Audi is down 12 per cent so far this year, dropping 1457 units to the end of June to be at 10,702 sales at the halfway mark of 2017.

For pure percentage drops, apart from brands in hibernation (Dodge, Proton and SsangYong), Chrysler picked up the wooden spoon with a 47.3 per cent slide and just 136 sales.

Having recently switched distributors from Sime Darby to Inchcape, Peugeot and Citroen sales dropped 46 per cent and 44.5 per cent respectively. Peugeot took a 915-unit loss to end up with 1074 deliveries, while Citroen dropped 236 units and sold just 294.

At the opposite end of the spectrum was Maserati, up 46.3 per cent with 417 sales, with Italian stablemate Alfa Romeo up 22.2 per cent on 522 units.

Japanese luxury insurgent Infiniti grew 18.2 per cent to 422 sales while Jaguar was also on the rise, up 15.1 per cent with 1467 deliveries.

By Haitham Razagui