Best-selling car brands in South Africa

South Africa’s favourite car brand in the month of July was Toyota, which scored a total of 10,812 sales out of the 43,389 new vehicles sold in the country.

Following in second place was VW, which managed to move 5,797 units off showroom floors, with Suzuki sitting in third thanks to its 4,361 sales.

The top three were the clear market leaders for July, as fourth place went to Hyundai which sold a considerably lower 2,878 cars, fifth place to Ford with a performance of 2,500, sixth place to Nissan with 2,308 sales, and seventh to Haval which processed 2,030 transactions.

Isuzu in eighth was just shy of the 2,000-unit mark with its vehicles finding 1,903 new owners, followed by Renault in ninth which saw 1,707 customers walk away with a new model.

Chery closed out the top 10 by virtue of its 1,375 sales, narrowly edging out Kia by a mere three units.

The overall market performance in July 2023 was 1.3% better than in the same month a year ago, following the Reserve Bank’s decision to stall interest rate hikes in the country owing to an improvement in economic conditions and lower inflation levels on fuel, food, and consumer goods, said Mikel Mabasa, Naamsa CEO.

Of the aggregate new-vehicle purchases last month, 81.8% were attributed to dealerships, 14.1% to the vehicle rental industry, 1.7% to the government, and 2.3% to industry corporate fleets.

The passenger car market was responsible for the bulk of sales, accounting for 64% of all transactions, the light-commercial vehicle segment which includes bakkies and mini-buses attributed 29%, medium-commercial vehicles added another 2%, and heavy trucks and buses the final 5%.