Best-selling car brands in South Africa

Naamsa’s new vehicle sales report for March 2021 shows that Toyota was the best-selling car brand in the country.

Toyota was followed by VW in second, and Nissan in third place.

“Aggregate domestic sales in March 2021, at 44,217 units, reflected a substantial increase of 10,671 units – or 31.8% – from the 33,546 vehicles sold in March last year,” said Naamsa.

“Export sales also recorded a huge increase in March 2021 and at 40,026 units, reflected a gain of 11,137 units – or 38.6% – compared to the 28,889 vehicles exported in March 2020.”

Naamsa CEO Mikel Mabasa said the automotive industry is expected to “start recapturing lost demand on its recovery path in 2021”.

“However, structural constraints which exist in the economy, coupled with the growing debt of the country and the ongoing electricity capacity limitations that business may be faced with in the future, do not bode well for a quick recovery,” said Mabasa.

Best-selling brands

The top 10 brand by local new vehicles sales numbers for March 2021 are listed below.

• Toyota – 10,797
• VW – 6,301
• Nissan – 4,096
• Ford – 3,610
• Hyundai – 3,204
• Suzuki – 2,397
• Isuzu – 1,870
• Haval – 1,526
• Mercedes-Benz – 1,520 (Estimate)
• Renault – 1,453

Top-selling Toyota Hilux

Toyota South Africa shared a detailed breakdown of its sales performance for March 2021, stating that it sold just under 4,000 Hilux bakkies during the month.

Other notable sales numbers included 1,348 Hiace vehicles, 977 Urban Cruisers, and 966 Fortuners.

It added that its cheaper models also performed well, with the Starlet (721), Corolla Quest (582), and Agya (531) proving popular.

Toyota’s new vehicle sales for the month accounted for a 24.2% market share of total industry sales in the country, it said.

“The split for Toyota was as follows: 5,783 were Light Commercial Vehicles, 4,726 were passenger vehicles, 155 were MCV, with HCV and Extra Heavy Commercial Vehicles segments recording 98 and 35 units respectively,” said the company.

In terms of its luxury brand Lexus, Toyota said it recorded the following sales numbers:

• NX – 14
• ES – 11
• LX – 9
• UX – 9

“We are grateful to our dealers, customers, and the entire Toyota workforce for positive and encouraging results from last month,” said VP of Marketing at Toyota South Africa, Leon Theron.