South Africa Vehicles Market in 2022 totals 298,901 sales, a 14.0% increase from the previous year. In December sales grew for the 12th month in a row, with new registrations at 39,112 (+15.6%).
Market Trend and Outlook
In 2022 the South African vehicles market totals 298,901 sales, a 14.0% increase from the previous year. In December sales grew for the 12th month in a row, with new registrations at 39,112 (+15.6%).
Looking at cumulative data from 2022 brand-wise, Toyota is still the leader with 126,870 sales (+11.7%), followed by Volkswagen at 63,717 (-2.2%) and Suzuki -up 2 spots- with 47,178 registrations (+71.0%).
In 4th position ranks Hyundai with 35,648 sales (+7.6%) in front of Nissan at 27,927 (+6.4%), Renault at 27,251 (+29.6%) and Ford with 26,228 registrations (-15.4%).
The last 3 positions in the Top 10 remain unchanged with Kia still in 8th at 22,766 sales (+13.1%), followed by Isuzu at 17,947 (+7.1%) and Havel at 16,351 (+41.4%).
Medium-Term Market Trend
There have been many ups and downs in the South African vehicles market. If we look at the past decade the market first grew from 2010 to 2013 reaching an all-time high of 614,900 sales. In the following year the trend inverted and the market dropped for 3 years reaching a minimum in 2016 at 523,254. In 2017 the market grew 1.5% but in 2018 it started to fall again, with 2019 following suit and reaching 507,567 sales.
The arrival of the pandemic in 2020 caused the South African market to collapse 29.4% to 358,155 registrations by the end of the year.
Luckily the fall wasn’t due to a structural problem in the industry with 2021 growing 22.2% to 437,737 sales. The current projections for 2022 show that the year will end just under the 500k mark (+12.0%). The vehicles market will have to confront some issues within automotive industry: the disruption in the global supply chain caused by a lack of raw materials, in particular for the production of microchips and Governments push towards Evs, an expensive alternative for low income consumers.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for top 10 Brands.
