The 4th best-selling car brand in South Africa is Chinese
Chery is technically the fourth best-selling car brand in South Africa.
Naamsa recently published the industry’s latest monthly sales figures, revealing the top performers from December 2025.
The top three are largely unchanged, as Toyota is still dominating the charts with well over 10,000 sales per month.
VW was able to reclaim second place from Suzuki last month, though the two brands are functionally neck and neck.
It’s a similar story with the fourth and fifth slots, as Hyundai and Ford are locked in a battle that typically sees the two brands swapping places from month to month.
Outside the top five, we have two Chinese makes, namely GWM and Chery, which came sixth and seventh, respectively.
This is already quite impressive, as the popularity of Chinese cars is still a relatively new phenomenon in South Africa that only dates back to around 2022.
Of course, Chinese carmakers have entered our market in droves since then, as there are now several names ranging from MG to Foton, LDV, Changan, GAC, and BYD.
Not all of these brands currently report their sales figures to Naamsa, but there are already a few names making waves in the industry.
Most notably, Jetour and the twin brand Omoda & Jaecoo (O&J) saw incredible results last month, ending in 10th and 11th place.
This is significant because Omoda, Jaecoo, and Jetour are all part of the Chery Group, even though they operate as separate brands in South Africa and report their own sales numbers.
This makes for an interesting comparison, however, as many of the other automakers on the list also include sales from their sub-brands.
Lexus adds to Toyota’s sales, and Audi does the same for VW. Haval is part of GWM, and Stellantis is a parent company that represents multiple brands, including Citroen, Alfa Romeo, Opel, Jeep, and Peugeot.
These were the official industry sales figures for December 2025:
- Toyota – 12,933 units
- VW – 5,014 units
- Suzuki – 4,961 units
- Hyundai – 3,068 units
- Ford – 2,987 units
- GWM – 2,453 units
- Chery – 2,249 units
- Isuzu – 1,906 units
- Kia – 1,508 units
- Jetour – 1,371 units
- Omoda & Jaecoo – 1,317 units
- Renault – 1,304 units
- Mahindra – 1,234 units
- Nissan – 1,011 units
- BMW – 843 units
- Stellantis – 524 units
- Mercedes-Benz – 474 units
- MG – 387 units
- Foton – 326 units
- Honda – 319 units
- JAC – 240 units
- Mazda – 235 units
- BAIC – 213 units
- Jaguar Land Rover – 200 units
- Changan – 150 units
- Mitsubishi – 128 units
- Porsche – 83 units
- Subaru – 66 units
- Volvo – 61 units
- Proton – 2 units
If we combine Chery’s sales with those of Omoda, Jaecoo, and Jetour, we can see that the company sold a grand total of 4,937 cars in South Africa this December.
This means it is technically the fourth best-selling carmaker in the country, outperforming Hyundai, Ford, and dozens of other big names.
More on the way
Chery plans to introduce two more sub-brands in South Africa this year known as iCaur and Lepas.
Lepas is positioned as an upmarket alternative to Chery that produces cars similar to Chery’s Tiggo family of crossovers and SUVs.
A total of three Lepas cars have been confirmed for our market this car – the L4, L6, and L8.
The other brand, iCaur, is quite different, as it specializes in electric 4×4 SUVs targeted at younger audiences.
iCaur will launch in South Africa with two cars called the 03 and the V23.
Chery and its other brands also plan to launch new products in our market, as Chery has a new double-cab bakkie called the Himla, and Omoda will launch a small crossover called the C4.
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