Photo by: Duane Daws
New-vehicle sales in October declined by 8.6%, to 54 244 units, compared with the same month last year, continuing the downwards trend evident in the last number of months.
New-vehicle sales had dropped by 9% in September, 8.2% in August, 6.1% in July and 4.8% in June.
Sales numbers released by the Department of Trade and Industry on Monday showed that new passenger car sales declined by 10.9% in October, to 36 175 units.
Sales of new light commercial vehicles, bakkies and minibuses, at 15 171 units, fell by 4.1%, while sales of medium trucks, at 1 064 units, jumped by 11.2%.
New heavy truck and bus sales declined by 6.1%, to 1 834 units.
Vehicle exports, which had thus far maintained positive momentum, dropped by 13.9% to 27 732 units.
Export numbers were muted owing to the production ramp-up at the Pretoria plant of the new Ford Ranger, which had just been launched, commented the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa).
“Significant Ford export numbers are expected to materialise over the next few months.”
However, warned Naamsa, “vehicle exports reported by various other manufacturers had also registered declines, which suggested the advent of a possible slowdown in global markets".
Top-selling Cars and Bakkies in October:
1. Volkswagen Polo Vivo 3 170
2. Toyota Corolla/Auris/Quest 2 769
3. Ford Ranger 2 740
4. Toyota Hilux 2 639
5. Volkswagen Polo 2 320
6. Chevrolet Utility 1 947
7. Nissan NP200 1 845
8. Toyota Etios 1 478
9. Isuzu KB 1 376
10. Toyota Quantum 1 256