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.
With a sixth-generation successor due to land in showrooms next month, the outgoing RAV4 found just 723 new homes last month (February 2026), which was down from 1757 in January and 4405 in February 2025. So far this year RAV4 sales are now down 73.8 per cent year-on-year.
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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“Our February sales aligned with our plans for 2026,” said Toyota Australia vice president of sales and marketing, John Pappas in a statement.
“We anticipated a steady start to the year as we transitioned to the all-new RAV4, and it’s positive to see most of our current generation RAV4 vehicles have been sold and customer demand remains strong across the Toyota range.”
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.
There’s a new, third-generation CX-5 coming to local showrooms in the second half of 2026, with pricing and equipment levels yet to be announced.
Mazda Australia told CarExpert it is not anticipating a RAV4-like sales slide in the lead-up to the new CX-5’s arrival, although the existing model’s continued popularity and ongoing sales rate may see lead to stock shortages, making its solid start to the new year difficult 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.
Toyota remained Australia’s number one auto brand in February 2026, with 13,606 sales almost double that of second-placed Mazda’s 7042 and third-placed Ford’s 6907.
Yet Toyota suffered the biggest fall of all brands in the top 10, its 27.8 per cent year-on-year sales decline being much larger than the overall market’s 2.7 per cent drop last month.
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