News / 1 April 2026 / Michael Taylor

Best-selling car brands in South Africa

The South African car industry continued its winning streak last month, selling 58,060 units.

This is a 17.3% year-on-year increase from March 2025, and the best March sales figure since 2007.

As expected, Toyota led the charge with an impressive 13,323 units – more than double the numbers of the runner-up.

Second place this time around went to VW, as its 5,574 sales were enough to knock Suzuki down to third with its 5,047 units.

Fourth place is a surprise, as Isuzu surged from seventh place in February to claim its new spot with 3,513 units under its belt.

Hyundai then came fifth with 3,258 sales, and Ford was pushed down to sixth place with 2,828 units.

The Chinese duo of GWM and Chery came seventh and eighth with 2,777 and 2,390 sales, respectively, and Mahindra came ninth thanks to 2,280 customers.

Last but certainly not least is Jetour, which knocked Kia out of the rankings to take 10th place with 1,768 sales.

Looking at the industry as a whole, 51,481 (88.5%) of all vehicle sales last month were attributed to dealer sales, while another 5.5% went to the rental industry.

Another 3.2% went to the government, and the remaining 2.6% were sold to corporate fleets.

Passenger car sales grew 18.2% year-on-year from 33,316 to 39,370 units, and light commercial vehicles like bakkies and vans experienced a similar jump of 15.7%, going from 13,445 to 15,557 units.

Unfortunately, this momentum was not shared by the export sector, which declined 5.3% to 37,388 units.

Naamsa attributed the strong local sales to improved consumer and business confidence, motivated by the benefits of cumulative interest rate reductions over the past year.

However, it noted that the market is now facing a more constrained outlook due to macro-economic factors like the Iran war and the rising cost of fuel.