VW has revealed that it’s exploring the idea of allowing its dealers to add other brands to their fold.
So-called “multi-franchise dealers” sell vehicles from several different automakers under one roof, and have grown in popularity in recent years as more manufacturers, particularly from China, enter the market.
At present, accredited VW dealers may only sell VW vehicles in South Africa under strict rules from the manufacturer.
However, with VW slowly but surely shedding market share, it confirmed to industry news publication Dealerfloor that it is now mulling options of multi-franchise facilities with more than one nameplate.
That said, a brand spokesperson clarified that there is no set date for implementation yet.
VW fights back
As market conditions in the country deteriorated since the Covid-19 pandemic, legacy automakers such as VW have taken a hit in terms of their sales, while newer entrants like Suzuki, Chery, and Haval flourished due to their better perceived value for money.
Case in point, VW officially lost its place as the second-best-selling automaker in South Africa in early 2025 to Suzuki in a battle that spanned two-and-a-half years, and it flagged the Tiggo 4 Pro from Chinese automaker Chery as one of its top rivals.
In light of this near unprecedented consumer preference shift, mature automakers have scrambled to find ways to regain the audience they have lost.
In the case of VW, the manufacturer has taken several steps to render its products more appealing from a pricing perspective.
It updated the highly popular Polo Vivo in late 2024 with several new features and cosmetics without raising the price of the hatchback.
In a similar vein, in February 2025 it introduced more affordable variants of the T-Cross to the country.
The T-Cross was once among the best-selling cars in South Africa but has failed to crack the top 20 for some time presumably due to its ballooning price tag, with this new more wallet-friendly models seeking to put an end to that.
Additionally, when the Golf 8 was rolled out globally in 2021, VW elected to only launch the high-performance GTI and R variants in South Africa and forgo the more affordable TSI entries.
Now, however, with the reveal of the facelifted Golf 8.5, VW announced that we will be getting the TSI once again, but that the future of the pricier GTI and R in South Africa remains murky.
Away from its catalogue, head of VW Group Africa, Martina Biene, advocated for a change in the way that import duty credits are used.
Import duty credits are awarded to automakers who produce a minimum threshold of vehicles within South Africa every year, and allow them to reduce import taxes on vehicles and components that are not locally made.
Biene, along with top brass at BMW South Africa, implored government to allow manufacturers to convert unused import duty credits into cash.
This will enable the companies to slash production costs and, in turn, the prices of locally produced vehicles.
On top of this, VW will start producing a new budget SUV at its Kariega, Eastern Cape plant come late 2026/early 2027.
Called the Tera in Brazil, the new vehicle is aimed at third-world markets in Africa and Latin America where affordability reigns supreme, and it will be the smallest and cheapest VW-branded SUV on the market.
The potential move to a multi-franchise dealer model is thus the latest in a long line of initiatives piloted by VW in an effort to climb back to where it once was.
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