New vehicle sales go up by 13.9% and exports increase by 17.9%

BusinessTech Africa has gathered that new vehicle sales in the domestic market went up by 13.9% in 2022 compared with 2021, says the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa.

Naamsa says the increase comes on the back of a 22.2% jump in 2021 compared with the previous year, 2020.

The 2022 number of 528 963 units is still 1.4% below 2019’s pre-pandemic level of 536 612 units.

“Following a fairly upbeat first-quarter performance, global supply-chain disruptions, along with the impact of the devastating floods in KwaZulu-Natal, elevated inflation, an upward trend in interest rates, record fuel prices, as well as record highs in the frequency and intensity of load shedding, weighed heavily on both business and consumer confidence,” says Naamsa per Engineering News.

“However, the new-vehicle market’s performance in 2022 remained resilient despite the multiple national and international headwinds.”

When taking a glance at the various segments, new-passenger-vehicle sales saw an improvement as they went up by 19.3% in 2022, to 363 092 units.

Tempering this positive news is the fact that the strong consumer trend of buying less expensive and smaller cars continued last year.

The sales of bakkies, vans, and mini-buses improved by 2% last year, to 135 666 units.

Additionally, the sales of medium-commercial vehicles increased by 11.3%, to 8 370 units, with the heavy truck and bus sector seeing an 11.7% jump, to 21 835 units.

New-vehicle exports from South Africa last year reached 351 450 units, showing a gain of 17.9% over 2021 numbers.

In a statement, Naamsa noted that 2022’s performance was affected by the floods in KwaZulu-Natal, which led to the closure of the Toyota plant for several months, while also causing challenges at the Durban port.