Automobile, South Africa (Common Wealth) _A determined automobile business maintained its head above water in June, recording a second consecutive month of sales growth after an increase the previous month and a meager 0.2% decline in April.
While the Toyota Hilux, unsurprisingly, retained its position as the best-selling new vehicle, with sales once again over 4 000 units, its stablemate, the Corolla Cross, experienced one of the most significant increases in recent months, with 2 115 documented sales.
Locally produced vehicles dominated the top five, with the Ford Ranger finishing third (2 099), the Volkswagen Polo Vivo fourth (1 967) and the Isuzu D-Max fifth (1 953).
The Toyota Fortuner finished seventh, behind the Indian-made Suzuki Swift (1 685), adding to the local flavor with 1 639 units, its best since March when 1 409 examples were produced at the Prospecton Plant.
With sales of 1 415, the Toyota Starlet was the only other vehicle in the top ten that was not manufactured in the country, finishing eighth, somewhat ahead of the Toyota HiAce (1 413) and some distance ahead of the venerable Nissan NP200 (1 108).
Despite picking up where it left off in May, the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) posted a 14.0% growth in June from 41 052 a year ago to 46 810.
Except for one, all categories ended the month in the black, with passenger cars gaining 0.8% from 29 544 to 29 795 and light commercial increasing by a record 57.1% from 8 875 to 13 945. Medium-duty commercial vehicles increased 8.2% from 687 to 743, while heavy-duty commercial vehicles increased 19.6% from 1 946 to 2 327.
After setting a new record in May with a 67.5% increase in sales, exports fell a notch in June, falling 12.6% from 31 216 in June 2022 to 27 296 in June 2023. Surprisingly, no new energy vehicle sales of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, or completely electric vehicles were reported.
The top six brands remained identical from May, with Toyota topping the chart with 13 016 points, followed by Volkswagen (5 578) and Suzuki (4 335), with Hyundai ranking fourth (2 645), Ford fifth (2 514), and Nissan sixth (2 380).
Isuzu moved up to seventh rank on 2 365, followed by Renault (1 836), and Haval dropped two places to ninth (1 749). Kia remained in tenth place with 1 668 units sold.
