These were South Africa's best-selling car brands in May

New-vehicle sales in South Africa last month overcame economic headwinds to record an encouraging 15.6% increase over the previous month and a 10.1% rise over May 2022, according to motor industry body Naamsa.

This was despite continued interest rate hikes, the depreciation of the rand on the back of geopolitical reputation risk around the Russia-Ukraine war, supply chain disruptions and rising inflation, said Naamsa CEO Mikel Mabasa.

At 43,060 units, total sales in May were 3,959 units higher than the corresponding month last year, driven mostly by light commercial vehicles that rose 38.5%. Passenger cars increased by 0.1%, medium commercials by 2.7% and heavy trucks by 19.3%.

Year-to-date, total new-vehicle sales of 218,869 units are 3.0% higher than the same period last year.

Vehicle exports in May 2023 were 31,437 units for a record gain of 67.5% compared with May 2022, boosted by the new-generation Ford Ranger and VW Amarok bakkies coming on stream at Ford’s Silverton plant. It came off a low base in May 2022 when vehicle exports were affected by the severe floods in KwaZulu-Natal, which caused the temporary closure of Toyota’s Prospecton factory and impacted the automotive supply chain.

Naamsa said another positive note was the 14.5% growth of new energy vehicles (NEVs) for year-to-date April compared to the same period last year. Sales of pure electric vehicles rose 105.8%, hybrids increased 7.9% while plug-in hybrids decreased 21.8%.

Naamsa cautioned against too much optimism driven by the sales growth, however.

“An unprecedented operational environment is now redefining the performance of the automotive industry, with record high externalities for decades. These ongoing negative domestic and global economic activities directly affect the production mechanisms of the industry and therefore, the cost of doing business in SA,” said Mabasa.

He said the 10th consecutive interest rate hike announcement by the Reserve Bank, with the prime lending rate now at 11.75%, was cause for concern.

“For the first time, inconsistent with emerging market currencies, the rand went into a free flow mode to record lows. To top it all, by May 9, SA had been in the dark for as long as the entirety of 2022. To date, South Africans have spent 27% of the year without power compared to 9.5% of 2022, and the situation is likely to get worse as the winter season intensifies,” said Mabasa.

“A load-shedding-bound economy will cause irreparable harm to the automotive industry which has become the successful cornerstone of industrialisation and development in SA.”

Toyota maintained its position as SA’s favourite brand last month with 11,395 sales, ahead of Volkswagen (5,259), Suzuki Auto (3,709), Hyundai (2,745), Ford (2,491), Nissan (2,314), Haval (1,877), Isuzu (1,871), Renault (1,848), Kia (1,668), BMW (1,228), Chery (1,211), Mahindra (907), Mercedes-Benz (692) and Daimler Truck (455) rounding out the top 15.

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