Features / 2 September 2025 / Michael Taylor

Best-selling car brands in South Africa

The South African car industry maintained its upward momentum last month with an impressive 51,880 sales.

This marks an 18.7% improvement from the 43,692 units sold in August 2024, largely driven by an influx of affordable models, greater consumer confidence, and better credit conditions.

Toyota was the top pick, as usual, with 13, 276 sales to its name.

This was followed by Suzuki in second place with 6,534 units, carving out a significant lead over VW in third place with its 5,521 units.

Hyundai came fourth with 3,007 sales, once again beating out Ford in fifth place with its 2,968 purchases.

The Chinese duo of GWM and Chery then came sixth and seventh with 2,519 and 2,228 sales, respectively, which meant that Isuzu got knocked down to eighth place with its 2,194 units.

Kia managed to grab ninth place with 1,542 sales, and Renault took the final spot in the top 10 with 1,374 showroom victories – knocking Mahindra off the list.

Of the cars sold in August 2025, 36,914 units registered were passenger cars – a gain of 22.5% from the year before.

Light commercial vehicles like bakkies and minibuses also saw an improvement of 15.1%, ending with 12,326 units.

An estimated 43,196 vehicles (83.3%) were sold through private dealer channels, while another 12.1% went to the rental industry.

Another 2.3% went to corporate fleets, and the remaining 2.3% were scooped up by the government.

Another positive indicator was vehicle exports, which improved by 6.2% last month to 37,500 units.

However, the industry is still facing pressure from the new US tariffs and the knock-on implications of increased competition for export to other markets.

“The industry’s ongoing focus will remain to navigate potential re-routing and further market diversification strategies,” said the Automotive Business Council.