New-vehicle sales fell by 13.9% in January, to 34 784 units, compared with the same month last year.
An estimated 28 716 units, or 82.6%, were dealer sales, with 11.4% going to the vehicle rental industry, 3.5% to government, and 2.5% of total sales to industry corporate fleets.
New passenger-car sales declined by 18%, to 23 853 units.
Sales of bakkies, vans and taxis saw a decline of 4.9%, to 9 301 units.
Medium-truck sales remained flat, at 497 units, with heavy-truck sales increasing by 6.6% to 1 133 units.
New-vehicle exports also saw some healthy growth, increasing by 39.7%, to 22 771 units.
The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) notes that the gradual monthly recovery in domestic new-vehicle sales evident in the last few months continued in January.
“The current upward momentum in vehicle exports also bodes well for a much-improved performance this year compared to 2020.”
Naamsa believes that new-vehicle market trading conditions will remain challenging owing to slow demand compared with the 2020 pre-Covid-19 first quarter, exchange rate volatility and the negative impact on household expenditure of fuel and electricity price increases.
“However, considering the close correlation between new-vehicle sales and the country's economic growth rate, the Reserve Bank’s forecast of a domestic economic growth rate of 3.6% for 2021 presents a favourable scenario for a sound rebound of the new-vehicle market in 2021, from the exceptional low base in 2020.
“It should be noted that the 2020 new-vehicle market recorded its lowest aggregate sales total in 18 years.”
Naamsa says it believes that a full recovery to pre-Covid-19 new-vehicle sales levels could take around three years.