UPDATED: Toyota still leads VW as new vehicle sales end June on a high

Note: Individual models’ sales have been released with the Toyota Hilux continuing to be the country’s best seller followed by the Ford Ranger, Volkswagen Polo Vivo, Volkswagen Polo and Isuzu D-Max. The top 50 best sellers have meanwhile been included. 

New vehicle sales continued to gain ground in June with the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (NAAMSA) recording a second consecutive increase after May’s record uptick.

While considerably lower than said month, total monthly sales came to 38 030 units, an increase of 20.2% from the 31 643 vehicles sold in June last year.

Up bar one were the various segments with passenger vehicles climbing from 19 134 to 24 482, an increase of 28%, while light commercial vehicles posted a 9.6% rise from 10 222 to 11 208 units.

Mixed however were medium and heavy duty commercial vehicles with the former jumping 19.1% to 687 units while the latter decreased by 3.3% to settle at 1 653. The biggest winner though was exports which recorded a 50.9% increase from last year’s 9 576 units to this year’s 28 384.

In a statement, NAAMSA however cautioned that the latest Covid-19 restrictions under adjusted Level 4, as well as ongoing electricity difficulties could have a potential negative impact going forward with the slow vaccination roll-out presenting another possible challenge.

“The vaccine rollout is slow and a third wave of the pandemic threatens to dent the momentum in consumption in the country, especially if the adjusted alert level 4 lockdown restrictions are extended for longer than the initial two-week period,” NAAMSA said.

“Compared to the first six months of 2020, the new vehicle market was now 40.1% above the corresponding period last year, but compared to the pre-Covid-19 first six months 2019, the new vehicle market was still 11.7% below the corresponding period 2019, highlighting that a full recovery would be protracted until around 2023”.

Out of the best performing manufactures, the countries’ top three remained unchanged with Toyota staying ahead of Volkswagen with sales of 9 630 versus 5 530, with Ford placing third on 3 273 followed by Hyundai (2 450), Nissan (2 120), Suzuki (1 992), Haval (1 809), Isuzu (1 664), Kia (1 557) and Renault (1 456).

JUNE TOP 50 BEST SELLERS