It’s been yet another good month for local automotive industry as car and bakkie sales improve.
According to data released by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa), new vehicle sales are up by 2.4% year-on-year across all vehicle categories.
Is SA's vehicle industry growing?
WesBank’s executive head for sales and marketing, Ghana Msibi said: "Coming off the poor performance of the industry in 2017, the year-on-year recovery is encouraging. It’s important to not misinterpret the recovery as growth."
Industry performance
A more holistic view of how the industry is performing comes from year-to-date data, where total sales over the first five months of 2018 are 1.6% down compared to the same period last year, reports WesBank.
A total of 220 783 new vehicles were sold in the first five months of this year, compared to 222 433 in the corresponding months last year.
Although sales in the rental channel were up by a significant 52.6% year-on-year, they follow the same year-to-date pattern as the rest of the industry with sales 16.8% down.
Market breakdown
Overall, out of the total reported Industry sales of 42 984 vehicles, an estimated 37 370 units (87%) represented dealer sales, an estimated 7.3% represented sales to the vehicle rental Industry, 3.7% to industry corporate fleets and 2% to government.
Infographic below by ABSA