News / 2 June 2025 / Michael Taylor

Best-selling car brands in South Africa

May was a stellar month for new car sales in South Africa with 45,308 units making their way off the showroom floor.

This is 8,169 more than what the industry sold in May 2024, reflecting an enormous year-on-year improvement of 22.0%.

Motorists will be unsurprised to learn that Toyota is still leading the charts, this time with a monthly count of 10,330 units – an almost identical sum to what it achieved in April.

Second place, meanwhile, once again went to Suzuki, which racked up an impressive 5,536 sales.

This puts it roughly 1,000 units ahead of its closest competitor – VW – which appeared to have comfortably settled as the nation’s third most popular badge with a substantial 4,582 purchases under its belt.

Next up is Hyundai, which managed to stay ahead of Ford once again with 3,251 sales, earning it a spot in fourth.

The Blue Oval wasn’t far behind, mind you, as it sold just shy of 3k units with a final total of 2,932.

Outside of the top five, GWM once again outperformed its Chinese rival Chery to secure sixth place with 2,069 units, while the latter ended in seventh with 1,995 units.

Another solid performance was delivered by Isuzu, which landed in eighth with 1,961 showroom victories in May.

The final two slots saw a change last month, however, as Renault dropped out of the top 10 while Mahindra moved up a spot.

The Indian carmaker is now sitting in ninth thanks to 1,524 new customers, and the last opening was snapped up by Kia, which sold 1,406 examples.

Of the 45,308 cars sold in South Africa in May, 88.4% were thanks to dealership sales while another 6.8% went to the rental industry.

Corporate fleets accounted for another 3.0% of sales, and the remaining 1.8% went to the government.

Passenger cars did particularly well last month, as purchases went up 30% year-on-year to reach a new total of 31,741 units.

Light commercial vehicles also experienced growth, though on a much smaller scale, as sales went up 5.8% to reach 10,938 units.

Unfortunately, one area that continues to underperform is exports, as foreign sales dropped 14.6% between May 2024 and 2025.

This means only 30,112 locally-made models made their way overseas last month, compared to 35,277 vehicles one year prior.

The good news is that one reason for this decline is the result of a temporary setback, as VW recently halted production at its Polo factory to allow for upgrades to its assembly line.

These upgrades have since been completed, and the automaker has confirmed that the site will resume normal operations.

However, the Automotive Business Council warned that the decline in exports is also the result of a global shift towards protectionism, where countries are clamping down on imports to product their local industries.