Features / 3 March 2026 / Michael Taylor

Best-selling car brands in South Africa

The South African car industry saw incredible success this February with 53,455 sales – the highest figure the month has seen since 2013.

Once again, the country can trace most of this success back to Toyota, which sold an impressive 12,272 units over the last 28 days – equivalent to an average of 438 cars per day.

Next up is Suzuki, which once again beat VW for second place, thanks to 6,562 customers.

Volkswagen came in third, though the gap between the two brands is quite large this time around, as the German automaker sold 4,895.

This sum still puts it well ahead of most other brands in South Africa, including the fourth-place entry – Hyundai – with its 3,136 units.

The South Korean carmaker placed ahead of Ford yet again, as the Blue Oval came fifth with 2,928 units.

Outside the top five, GWM proved to be the most popular Chinese car brand in South Africa with 2,614 units, and Isuzu jumped from 10th to seventh place with 2,371 units.

Chery then came eighth with 2,312 purchases, while Mahindra placed ninth with 1,996.

Last but not least is Kia, which closed the top 10 with 1,746 showroom victories.

Taking a holistic look at the industry, 85.0% (45,457 units) of the cars sold last month were thanks to dealerships, while 9.6% went to rental fleets.

Another 3.0% went to the government, and the remaining 2.4% were snapped up by corporate fleets.

The passenger car market grew 11.3% (3,826) year-on-year to reach 37,576 units, and light commercial vehicles saw a similar increase of 11.5%, going from 11,816 to 13,218 units.

Unfortunately, exports saw a worrying decline of 28.1%, dropping 9,463 units from 33,684 to 24,221.

Naamsa attributed the drop to the heightened protectionism across several of South Africa’s key overseas markets, while stringent decarbonisation requirements in other countries continue to weigh on the local industry’s competitiveness.