New vehicle sales started the year at a blistering pace, with sales in January, at 55 007 units, surging 14.1% over sales in January last year, reported the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) on Monday.

The association said all major new vehicle segments recorded double-digit growth, with new car sales up 12.3%, light commercial vehicles up 20%, medium commercials up 10.6%, heavy trucks up 30% and extra heavy truck sales up 16.6%.

January export sales, at 17 399 vehicles, jumped by 5 794 vehicles, or 49.9%, compared with the 11 605 vehicles exported in January last year.

While the numbers appeared exceedingly positive, two trends had perhaps contributed to abnormally high sales in January.

Naamsa said recent exchange rate weaknesses would probably have stimulated some pre-emptive buying by consumers seeking to avoid price increases later this year.

Wesbank sales and marketing executive head Chris De Kock added that analysis of the data showed that dealer sales in the passenger and light commercial vehicle markets grew only by 3.8% last month.

“The biggest contributor to the strong sales growth in January 2013 actually came from the rental market, which recorded 48.5% growth in sales compared to January 2012.”

De Kock said the spike in rental sales was an exception and that sales were expected to normalise during February.

Naamsa said that the overall near term outlook for the South African automotive sector remained “reasonably positive”.

“Factors that would continue to support domestic sales included the low interest rate environment, replacement demand, [a] highly competitive trading environment with attractive incentives, low debt servicing costs, high technology new model introductions and strong demand by car rental companies. On the negative side, rising inflationary pressures would limit growth in real disposable income, which, together with generally anticipated rising new vehicle prices as a result of the weaker exchange rate, could result in some moderation in the rate of growth in sales over the balance of the year.”