News / 3 April 2023 / Michael Taylor

Best-selling car brands in South Africa

South Africans purchased a total of 50,157 new vehicles in March 2023, marking a small decrease of 0.6% over the same month in 2022, but the best month in 2023 thus far, according to Naamsa’s latest vehicle sales reports.

First place was taken by Toyota as usual, which managed to up its performance from last month with an additional 1,846 units for a grand total of 13,406 sales.

The runner-up, Volkswagen, also had an excellent month with purchases increasing by nearly a thousand units from February to reach 6,139 units – no doubt helped by the recent launch of the long-awaited Amarok bakkie.

Third place was then taken by Suzuki, which appears to have firmly entrenched itself as a fan-favourite brand in South Africa with its range of affordable models returning sales figures upwards of 4,300 units.

Nine out of the top 10 brands also managed to find more than 2,000 buyers, and 10th place was not far behind with Kia moving 1,833 units off the showroom floor in March.

Looking at the industry as a whole, 31,631 of the cars sold last month were passenger vehicles – a 6.4% decrease from 2022 – while light-commercial vehicles like bakkies experienced an 11.1% improvement, translating to 15,529 units.

Car dealerships were responsible for 87.3% of sales in March, with corporate fleets responsible for another 2.5%, the government for 4.1%, and rental agencies for the final 6.1%.

While domestic sales saw an ever-so-slight decrease over the previous year, exports reported a 3.1% increase equivalent to 50,465 units.

Despite slow domestic growth, the current projection from Naamsa is that local sales will grow by 6.3% in 2023 for a total of 563,000 units, while exports will increase by 8.3% to reach 380,900 units.