General Motors South Africa (GMSA) is expanding its right-hand drive sales with the first shipment of 60 Isuzu KB pick-ups.
Kenya joins Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe on GMSA’s right-hand drive list but the company will also begin left hand drive production at its Port Elizabeth plant next year as its targets further expansion into sub-Sahara African markets.
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Isuzu is already well established in Kenya, taking a 30% share of the light commercial vehicle market last year.
GMSA exports manager and East Africa MD Rita Kavashe told reporters in Port Elizabeth that the launch of left-hand drive production “will open up new opportunities for us to export the Isuzu KB beyond our existing markets to rapidly growing countries, like Angola and Nigeria.”
Ms Kavashe said that GMSA is working closely with Isuzu to “robustly grow our footprint in key markets. Key to achieving this is strengthening our distribution network, improving logistics efficiencies, ensuring that the right product portfolio is in place and providing excellent after sales support to our customers.”
GMSA needs to increase its exports to reach the 50,000 annual production volume that qualifies it for incentives under the government’s new Automotive Production and Development Plan that comes into force next year.
The Isuzu KB has been built in Port Elizabeth for about 40 years. GMSA also builds the Chevrolet utility and starts production of the Spark later this month.
