In the 2025 new car sales race, how did prestige brands stack up?
Australia’s prestige vehicle market saw a fair share of winners and losers, with more brands counting wins, compared to those who trended downwards.
Below is a list of each prestige brand’s form throughout 2025.
Alfa Romeo had an interesting 2025, losing ground overall. According to VFACTS official sales reporting, Alfa Romeo sales slipped 17.5 per cent with 463 deliveries, but that’s not quite the whole story.
Where the Tonale small SUV should have been its guiding light, the opposite was true.
Tonale sales slipped 46.3 per cent in 2025, with just 132 units sold.
The new Junior, meanwhile, sold 94 units in its first year on sale – but isn't counted towards Alfa’s total, instead reported as Stellantis cars, grouped with the Jeep Avenger.
With Junior sales incorporated, Alfa Romeo’s overall figures actually grew 0.7 per cent.
The Giulia sedan was the brand’s best-seller, despite sedans typically losing ground to SUVs. Giulia sales were up 10.5 per cent with 210 deliveries.
Audi managed to build sales by just 4.4 per cent overall, despite the introduction of new models like the Q6 e-tron and new generations of the A5 and Q5.
Audi’s biggest seller was the Q3 small SUV with 4206 sales, down 23.5 per cent.
The Q5 medium SUV picked up by 30.4 per cent, with 3570 sales, no doubt helped by the arrival of a new-generation model.
A5 sales look impressive, with a 93.9 per cent improvement, but the A5 range now covers sedans and wagons that previously fell under the A4 nameplate. The result was 979 A5s, still beating the 511 A4s from 2024.
Other star performers in the Audi stable were the ageing Q7 SUV, up 36.5 per cent (1283 sales), and the A1 hatch, which climbed 148.9 per cent (438 sales).
The overall tally for Bentley was down 18 per cent, with no single model posting an improvement.
As a low-volume brand, that’s not particularly out of the ordinary. The Flying Spur sedan had the biggest drop, down 40 per cent with just 12 deliveries. The Continental has the softest landing, down 11.4 per cent with 70 units sold.
The Continental even outsold the Bentayga SUV, which came second with 68 units delivered, down 19 per cent.
A steady year for BMW saw deliveries rise by just 1.9 per cent across the 23 model lines VFACTS counts.
Compact models like the 1 Series (1722 sales) and 2 Series Gran Coupe (792 sales) picked up by 32.8 and 42.7 per cent respectively.
Similarly, the X1 and X2 small SUVs grew 17 per cent (5306) and 6.5 per cent (2083) respectively.
The redesigned X3 grew 45.5 per cent, with 4909 sales, but sales for traditional sedans like the 3 Series (1877 units, down 24.1 per cent), 5 Series (315 units, down 33.1 per cent), and 7 Series (38 units, down 22 per cent) all moved backwards.
The electric i7 outsold its petrol counterpart, up 94.4 per cent with 70 deliveries.
Rather than count individual models, Ferrari sales are split by coupe/convertible as one model line, and Purosangue as the other.
Overall sales dropped 10.6 per cent, 164 coupes and convertibles found homes in 2025, down 11.4 per cent.
The Purosangue dropped 8.2 per cent, with 56 sales.
That small increase fell entirely to the GV70 medium SUV, the only model to increase sales.
The 1220 GV70 sales represented a 35.3 per cent increase.
The GV80 SUV was the second-best seller for Genesis with 201 deliveries, down 9.9 per cent, and the GV80 Coupe managed 87 deliveries, down 15.5 per cent.
While probably not what you’d traditionally consider a prestige brand, the high-spec GMC Yukon sold in Australia is pitched as a rival to the Lexus LX, and an alternative to BMW and Mercedes SUVs.
In its first year on sale, the V8-powered Yukon managed 342 sales.
Don't believe everything you read. Sensationalised headlines overseas will tell you Jaguar’s precipitous sales drop is the result of its controversial rebranding efforts.
The reality is very different. Sales are down because the brand has halted production of all its models as it concentrates on a complete rebirth as an ultra-luxe EV brand.
Jaguar dropped 30 per cent in Australia, not as bad as some other markets. The E-Pace small SUV actually saw sales increase 4.0 per cent, with 183 sold.
The best-selling F-Pace large SUV sold 304 units, down 29 per cent.
Lamborghini saw almost no change in overall sales, down just 0.4 per cent.
The brand’s coupe/convertible lines dropped 28.5 per cent with 118 deliveries.
The Urus SUV made up for that with a 42.6 per cent increase, recording 154 deliveries.
Land Rover’s 5.4 per cent lift in sales rests largely on the continuing success of the Defender, which grew 20.1 per cent with 3854 deliveries.
The brand’s second-best-selling model was the Range Rover Sport, up 4.5 per cent with 2306 deliveries.
At the other end of the spectrum, Discovery sales dropped 11.8 per cent, with 413 deliveries, while the full-size Range Rover crashed 46.1 per cent with 369 units sold in 2025.
A quiet win for Lexus saw sales lift by 6.7 per cent.
The best-selling NX medium SUV was down slightly, a 1.6 per cent drop to 6024 units. The RX picked up 2.5 per cent and sold 2126 units.
The brand’s GX large SUV 1197), LBX compact SUV (1995) and UX small SUV (1211) all picked up by over 30 per cent.
Lotus crashed hard in 2025, down 53.5 per cent.
The Emira was the strong point with 60 deliveries, a fall of 56.5 per cent.
The Eletre SUV sold 9 units, down 25 per cent, and the Emeya sedan managed 3 sales, a 40 per cent drop.
All of Maserati’s model lines stumbled in 2025, with overall sales down 30 per cent.
The Grecale was the brand’s best seller, selling 238 units, a 15 per cent slip.
The Levante took the biggest tumble, down 88 per cent with 6 sold, making it Maserati’s slowest-selling model – hardly surprising with the model going out of production in late 2024.
McLaren sales are grouped together as a whole, and not by individual model, in the VFACTS report. In 2025 the brand shed 28.4 per cent of sales, with 68 vehicles sold.
With a 14.3 per cent increase in sales, Mercedes-Benz can hold its head high.
The GLC medium SUV range was the star with 4306 SUVs, up 47 per cent, and 1520 GLC Coupes, up 0.8 per cent, for the year.
Mercedes-Benz SUVs were good performers, with the GLA up 4.5 per cent (3244), the GLE Coupe up 14.9 per cent (446), the GLE SUV up 40.3 per cent (2084), the GLS up 45.1 per cent (685) and the G-Class up 33.3 per cent (561).
Mini had a strong 2025, with the brand up 37.7 per cent overall.
The Cooper hatch range is still the best seller, with 2263 sales, up 45.2 per cent, and losing the Clubman hasn't negatively affected the brand.
The Countryman grew 19 per cent, with 2235 sales – just a handful of units away from overtaking the Cooper.
The Aceman compact SUV managed 604 sales in 2025, but the biggest growth came from the Mini Cabrio, up 103.7 per cent, with 383 units sold.
Polestar had a strong 2025, with a 38.5 per cent increase in sales for the brand.
The Polestar 2 slipped noticeably, down 48.9 per cent compared to 2024, with 746 cars sold.
The medium sedan meets SUV four-door-coupe Polestar 4 was the strongest seller, with 1295 sales.
The Polestar 3 large SUV was the slowest seller, with just 332 sales for the year.
Both Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 were introduced during 2024, giving skewed growth figures for 2025 without full year-on-year sales data to compare.
Porsche had a rocky 2025, down 37 per cent for the year.
The Macan held its title as the brand’s top-seller, but a 34 per cent slide resulted in only 2194 units sold.
The Panamera was the only model to pick up, with 82 units sold, a lift of 24.2 per cent.
The Cayenne Coupe sold 932 units (down 7.6 per cent), the Cayenne SUV moved 662 examples (down 19.3 per cent).
The Cayman has the biggest fall, down 53.3 per cent with 208 registrations for the year, although with petrol-powered Cayman and Boxter production coming to an end in 2025, this was always likely to be the case.
The venerable 911 dropped 7.5 per cent, with 724 deliveries for the year.
Rolls-Royce was surprisingly resilient throughout 2025, with a 24.1 per cent boost in sales.
Coupe/convertible models were down 15.8 per cent with 16 sold. The electric Spectre coupe is now the only Rolls two-door, filling in where once the Dawn convertible and Wraith coupe used to compete.
The Cullinan SUV grew 32 per cent, with 33 deliveries, and Rolls-Royce sedans, the Ghost and Phantom combined, jumped 80 per cent with 18 deliveries.
A rough year for Volvo saw sales drop by 18.6 per cent overall, despite new model introductions like the ES90 and EX90.
The biggest-selling XC40 was down 16.3 per cent with 2630 sales, and only the XC60 reported a sales growth with 2047 deliveries, up 7.5 per cent.
Changes to Volvo’s line-up through the year also contributed with models like the C40 and S60 dropping out of the sales race during the year.
Zeekr’s 2025 introduction means growth won’t be clocked until the end of 2026.
Starting figures for the beans saw it sell 1206 7X medium SUVs, 665 small Zeekr X SUVs, and 123 examples of the 009 people mover.
Kez Casey migrated from behind spare parts counters to writing about cars over ten years ago. Raised by a family of automotive workers, Kez grew up in workshops and panel shops before making the switch to reviews and road tests for The Motor Report, Drive and CarAdvice.
