SOUTH AFRICA: October sales "encouraging improvement"

3 November 2009 | Source: just-auto.com editorial team

The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (NAAMSA) said domestic new car sales, supported by seasonally strong sales to the rental industry, had shown encouraging improvement though new commercial vehicle sales in all segments had continued to reflect weakness.

NAAMSA reported new vehicle sales of 31,622 units, down 16.9% year on year.

New car sales were off 9.7% t0 20,836 units.

New light commercial vehicles, bakkies (pickup trucks) and minibuses fell 25.6% to 9,204 units.

After 10 months of 2009, total sales were off 28.8% to 330,547 units.

Exports of 20,948 were down 25.4%.

"Overall, the latest domestic sales figures reinforced the view that the industry was at an early stage in emerging from the extremely severe recession in the automotive market which had started mid 2006," NAAMSA said.

"Expected further improvement in the months ahead was likely to be slow and hesitant off an extremely low base."