Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Australian new car sales dipped in April, according to latest figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

From March sales slid by 2.5% to 97,604 vehicles after seasonal adjustments, leaving total sales up 2.4% from a year earlier.

Representative of the economic divergence between non-mining and mining regions of the country, sales increased in New South Wales (9.8%), Victoria (0.8%) and the ACT (10.1%) over the past 12 months, helping to offset declines in Queensland (3.7%), Western Australia (2.7%), the Northern Territory (7.4%) and Tasmania (1.4%).

Sales in South Australia were largely unchanged from a year earlier, growing 0.1%.

By category, sales of passenger vehicles, sports utility vehicles and other vehicles increased by 0.6%, 1.6% and 7.8% respectively over the same period

In cumulative terms there were 1.168 million vehicles sold over the past 12 months, up 3.74% on the level seen in the year to April 2015.

Sales of sports utility vehicles and other vehicles numbered 424,351 and 239,081 — up 14.6% and 3.1% on sales in the year to April 2015 — helping to offset a drop of 3.7% in passenger vehicles sales over the same period which fell to 504,904.

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