The Australian new car market broke its sales record for the third consecutive year in 2025, with over 1.24 million new vehicle registrations (VFACTS, 2025). Behind that number is a shift that most automotive brands have been slow to respond to.
Multicultural communities are buying new cars at a higher rate than the general Australian population. And most of the advertising directed at them is in English, through mainstream channels, missing them almost entirely.
The Numbers Make the Case
Roy Morgan research found that millennials born in India are 15.3% more likely to intend to buy a new car in the next four years than the average Australian millennial. For those born in China the figure is 14.9%. For Gen Z born in India or China the gap is even more striking, they are roughly twice as likely to intend to purchase a new car compared to the average Australian in their age group.
Of the Chinese-born millennials surveyed, nearly half were yet to decide what car they would buy. That is an enormous pool of undecided buyers in one of the most active purchasing demographics in the country. And they are reachable.
Separately, research from Origins found that consumers with East, Southeast and South Asian backgrounds are more than three times as likely to show interest in specific vehicle models compared to the broader Australian average.
These are not niche numbers. This is a major segment of the Australian automotive market that the industry is largely talking past.
How Multicultural Buyers Actually Make Decisions
Understanding the numbers is one thing. Understanding how these communities approach a car purchase is what separates a campaign that works from one that does not.
The family is involved. Multicultural buyers, particularly those from Chinese and South Asian backgrounds, approach major purchases collectively rather than individually. Friends are consulted. Community networks matter. A recommendation from within the community carries far more weight than any advertising a dealership runs in mainstream media.
This has a practical implication. One satisfied buyer in a tight-knit community does not stay one buyer for long. The word travels. The referral follows. Brands that earn genuine trust within multicultural communities are not just making a single sale.
Research happens before the dealership visit. Chinese-Australian buyers in particular conduct deep research before setting foot in a showroom. WeChat, Little Red Book, community news outlets, TV, radio, and in-language digital media are where the consideration phase happens. By the time they walk into a dealership, many have already formed a shortlist. Being visible and trusted in Chinese-language media during that research phase is where automotive brands win or lose.
Cultural moments drive purchase timing. Buying a car around an auspicious occasion is common across both Chinese and Indian communities. Diwali, Lunar New Year and other major cultural events are genuine peaks in automotive consideration. These are moments when communities are highly engaged with their own media and actively making significant purchasing decisions. Brands present in ethnic media during these windows are speaking to buyers who are already in market.
What Mainstream Advertising Misses
An English-language campaign on television or radio reaches the general Australian population. It does not meaningfully reach a Vietnamese-Australian family in Melbourne who consumes Vietnamese-language media, a Punjabi-speaking buyer in Western Sydney who listens to Multicultural Radio, or a Chinese-Australian professional who gets their news through their own in-language sources.
These buyers are not absent from the market. They are active in it. They are just not in the media environment where most automotive advertising lives.
The other reality is that multicultural media is genuinely uncluttered. Automotive brands that show up consistently in Indian-language media around Diwali, or in Chinese-language media around Lunar New Year, are not competing with twenty other car brands for the same attention. The environment is engaged and the competition is limited.
The Community Effect
The brands that build genuine presence in multicultural media do not just generate leads. They build reputations within communities that compound over time. A dealership that is known and trusted within the local Indian-Australian community, or the Vietnamese-Australian community, creates a referral network that no mainstream campaign can replicate.
These communities are growing. Their purchasing power is growing with them. The brands that build those relationships now will be very difficult to displace later.