The Suzuki Jimny has broken its sales record for the third month in a row, as increased supply unlocks shorter wait times – for now.
Suzuki Jimny wait times are as low as one to two months for some versions – down from heights of 18 months for certain variants last year – but top-selling automatics still attract a delay of up to eight months.
It has followed the third sales record in three months for the Suzuki Jimny, reporting 878 deliveries in May 2024 – up from 862 in April, 856 in March, and the previous best of 748 in June 2023.
The Jimny is well on track to beating its annual record of 5697 sales in 2022 – and Suzuki Australia believes it can exceed 9000 sales this calendar year.
Wait times across the Suzuki Jimny range have decreased in recent months with the arrival of greater stock of the new five-door XL – and improved production of the three-door.
Suzuki Australia paused orders of the three-door automatic Jimny for most of last year due to overwhelming demand, and production constraints.
While wait times have reduced to between one and eight months – depending on the model – demand is running at an all-time high.
“We’re just constantly asking for more. So we’re just getting what we can get. We’re doing our best,” Suzuki Australia general manager of automobiles, Michael Pachota, told Drive this week.
Delivery times for the three-door Jimny (four to six months manual, six to eight months auto) are longer than the five-door (one to two months manual, two to three months auto) due to a temporary surge in stock for the latter.
“We’ve been very fortunate to get a large amount of early stock supply. Unfortunately that will reduce later so we have to rob the future to build the current,” said Mr Pachota.
The executive said Australia was able to take on more production of the five-door in the short-term – which is made in India, not Japan like the three-door – at the expense of the long term, when the XL is launched in more overseas markets.
“I pushed for it very hard to be able to rob my future supply and give [overseas markets] a better future supply based on their launch dates.”
The split between three-door and five-door Suzuki Jimny body styles is approximately 50:50, which has caught Suzuki Australia by surprise, as it expected the five-door to become the top-seller.
“I’m a little bit surprised … because I actually thought that XL would grow considerably to at least 60 per cent by this stage,” Mr Pachota told Drive.
“But we found that the popularity is still very strong in the three-door, so there’s been very little signs of cannibalisation across the two different variants.
“I don’t know how that would go into next year and based on our supply, we’re just going to keep going with demand and see how we go.”
Mr Pachota said supply of the three-door Jimny – built in Japan – is “stable” as “the plant only has so much capacity and there are no plans to expand on that capacity at this stage.”
He said sourcing three-door Jimnys from India – where it is built alongside the five-door for certain overseas markets – is not an option for the Australian market.
| Suzuki Jimny estimated wait times, June 2024 | |
| Jimny three-door manual | 4-6 months (no change vs April 2024) |
| Jimny three-door auto | 6-8 months (vs 8-10 months in April) |
| Jimny XL five-door manual | 1-2 months (unchanged vs April) |
| Jimny XL five-door auto | 2-3 months (vs 3-4 months in April) |
The post Suzuki Jimny wait times in Australia: Latest details as sales record broken again appeared first on Drive.
