Small increase in new vehicle sales in February

Of the total reported sales, excluding Mercedes-Benz, 82.2 % (or 40 761 units) represented dealer sales, 7.6% represented sales to the vehicle rental Industry, 5.8 % sales to government and 4.4% to motor industry corporate fleet sales.

New car sales during February totalled 36 357 units which is 2303 more vehicles than during the same month last year. A good boost to car sales came from car rental companies, which bought about 10.5% of all new cars in this country during February.

Exports of South African produced vehicles dropped by 10% (from 25 155 last year to 22 630 this February). However, exports should improve from April as the Ford global compact vehicle programme and the BMW new 3 Series production start running but there are concerns about the impact of the global economy.

NAAMSA says it expects moderate overall growth in the motoring industry for 2012 thanks to the ongoing improvement in the financial position of consumers, relatively low interest rates, continuing improvement in vehicle affordability in real terms, the highly competitive trading environment and new model introductions.