New vehicle sales slump further

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Exports totalled 29,308, or a drop of 1.6% compared to February last year. Sales of new light commercial vehicles, bakkies and mini buses dropped by 13.1%. Sales of medium and heavy trucks also slumped with medium commercial sales down 12.9%.

The new car market recorded a drop of 6.1%vehicle in spite of solid support from the car rental companies which accounted for 17.5% of the total sales. Of the total new vehicle sales, 48,149 units represented dealer sales.

A NAAMSA spokesman said given the difficult economic environment and low GDP growth prospects, the "reality” of well above inflation new vehicle price increases and expectations of further interest rate hikes, the outlook in terms of domestic new vehicle sales remained constrained. He said the consumer demand sensitive new car market was expected to decline by around 9% in volume to about 375,000 units in 2016 from the 412,826 new cars sold in 2015.