Features / 3 March 2025 / Michael Taylor

Best-selling car brands in South Africa

Toyota was the headline car brand in South Africa in February 2025, selling an impressive 11,743 units.

Admittedly, this is slightly less than the 12,152 units it sold the month prior, but it was still an overall solid turnout for the Japanese automaker.

The same can be said of Suzuki, which is comfortably holding onto its second-place title with 6,044 units, putting it well ahead of VW.

Speaking of, Volkswagen (whose sales also include Audi) sold a respectable 5,249 cars last month, securely landing in the top three.

Hyundai also had an excellent month with 3,074 purchases, and Ford wasn’t far behind with its 2,900 customers.

Another big winner in February was Isuzu, which jumped from eighth to sixth place with a new total of 2,298 units, narrowing the gap with its bakkie-rival Ford.

The Chinese pair of Chery and GWM are up next, as the former sold 1,924 vehicles in the 28-day month, while the latter did 1,713.

Ninth place then went to Mahindra, which is in the top 10 for the second month in a row with 1,610 showroom victories.

Finally, there’s Nissan, which ended with 1,497 units, pushing out competitors like Renault, Kia, and BMW for the last spot in the top 10.

Taking a holistic look at the sector overall, a total of 47,978 new cars were sold in South Africa in February 2025, reflecting a gain of 7.3% year-on-year from the same month in 2024.

Passenger car sales ended with 33,757 units, marking a significant improvement of 17% from the same month last year.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for light commercial vehicles, which declined by 11.3% to 13,306 examples.

Of all the cars sold last month, 84.1% were thanks to dealerships while another 11.1% went to the rental industry.

Another 2.2% were taken by corporate fleets, and the remaining 2.5% went to the government.

Exports also took a hit last month with only 34,656 models making it overseas, equating to an 8.3% drop.

Naamsa attributes the improvements in local passenger car sales to a lower interest rate environment and positive consumer sentiment leading to greater demand.

The shortfalls in the commercial and export scene, on the other hand, can be traced to uncertainty in the global marketplace, chiefly driven by factors like the USA’s recent changes to its trade policies.