Features / 4 November 2025 / Michael Taylor

Best-selling car brands in South Africa

South Africa’s auto industry knocked it out of the park in October 2025 with a staggering 55,956 units.

This is the highest monthly total since March 2015 and 16% higher than the same month last year, indicating strong growth for the sector.

When it comes to individual brands, Toyota naturally came first with a whopping 13,559 units, translating to a 24.23% market share.

Suzuki came second with its own impressive sum of 6,890 units, and VW also managed to crack 6k sales with 6,221 units.

Hyundai and Ford switched places yet again with the South Korean automaker moving up to fourth with 3,017 sales while the Blue Oval fell only a few units behind with 2,946.

Outside the top five, GWM proved to be the most popular Chinese brand in the country with 2,805 purchases, and Isuzu is still holding onto seventh place thanks to 2,784 customers.

Chery is up next withy 2,210 units, and Kia and Mahindra took the last two spots in the top 10 with 1,808 and 1,551 sales, respectively.

Taking a holistic look at the industry, 79.1% of the 55,956 cars sold last month were attributed to dealership sales.

Another 16.6% went to rental fleets, 2.2% were sold to the government, and the remaining 2.1% was taken by corporate fleets.

Passenger car sales totaled 39,610 units, reflecting a 14.8% year-on-year improvement from the 34,503 sold last October.

Things were even better for light commercial vehicles like bakkies and vans, which grew 23.9% over the same period from 10,782 to 13,361 units.

Vehicle exports remained steady, reporting a small 0.5% improvement to reach 32,659 units last month.

The Automotive Business Council attributed the industry’s solid performance to easing inflation, improving consumer sentiment, and demand recovery in export markets.