Ranked: GWM and Chery lead best-selling Chinese brands in September

South Africa’s new vehicle sales ended September with a full-house of increases this year, and the third in a row exceed 50 000 units.

With an offset of 54 700 units, 24.3% up on last year’s 44 000 and the highest since the same month in 2015, the local industry has also gone a year without posting any overall losses since October last year.

Coming back

One of the biggest telling stories remains the ongoing rise of Chinese vehicles, with two present among the top 10 best-selling brands, namely Great Wall Motors (GWM) and Chery.

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Soon to be bolstered by returning brands Changan, Geely, JMC and debutant Deepal before the end of the year, the arrival next year of iCaur and Lepas will see no less than 21 Chinese brands doing business in South Africa.

Present brands

Currently, products from the People’s Republic hail from the following brands;

• BAIC;
• BYD;
• Chery;
• Dayun;
• Dongfeng;
• Foton;
• GAC;
• GWM Haval;
• JAC;
• Jaecoo;
• Jetour;
• LDV;
• MG;
• Omoda;
• Riddara

Of these though, only a handful report their sales to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa), those not being BYD, Dayun, Dongfeng, GAC, LDV and Riddara.

September Chinese vehicle sales

While unlikely to unseat Toyota or any of the other customary top-five best performing brands anytime soon, the September figures still make for interesting reading when taking the People’s Republic brands in mind.

Besides GWM, Chery occupies three of the top five places by virtue of itself in second place, and its Omoda & Jaecoo and Jetour marques in third and fourth places.

Again, the biggest surprise after only two months of sales reporting, is MG in fifth place.

In total, South Africa’s Chinese vehicle brands obtained the following sales numbers in September:

1. GWM – 2 620
2. Chery – 2 264
3. Omoda & Jaecoo – 1 201
4. Jetour – 815
5. MG – 557
6. Foton – 410
7. JAC – 225
8. BAIC – 124

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