Commercial vehicle sales grow

 By Colin Windell

There are some indications the country is easing out of the recession and this is backed up by a small growth in commercial vehicles sales during October.

Truck sales show positive signs

October new vehicles sales as reported to the National Association of Automobile Manufactures of South Africa (Naamsa) grew quite substantially in some sectors, suppporting the belief the country was emerging from the technical recession.

October, 2018 domestic sales of new light commercial vehicles, bakkies and mini buses at 14 168 units had improved by 794 units or 5,9% compared to the 13 374 light commercial vehicles sold during the corresponding month last year.

Sales in the medium and heavy truck segments of the industry also reflected good improvement and at 782 units and 1 866 units, respectively, recorded an increase of 104 vehicles or an improvement of 15,3% in the case of medium commercial vehicles and, in the case of heavy trucks and buses, an
improvement of 204 vehicles or a gain of 12,3 % compared to the corresponding month last year.

Both segments recorded improvements for the fourth consecutive month. The stronger sales number suggested an improvement in capital investment sentiment in South Africa.

Particularly noteworthy was the fact the October domestic sales figure was the highest monthly total in the past three years – since October, 2015.

“The South African economy continued to experience difficult conditions with consumers’ disposable income remaining under pressure. Continued weakness in the latest Purchasing Managers’ Indices and the Reserve Bank’s Leading Indicator suggested business conditions would probably remain difficult over the short term,” says Naamsa.

“On the positive side, new vehicle affordability had continued to improve with new vehicle price inflation remaining well below the Consumer Price Index for the past fifteen months.”

The recent investment summit served as a platform to re-establish trust between government and the private sector, to restore credibility in South Africa as a business friendly market economy and to generate a quantum increase in investment – so essential to grow and develop the economy.

“These investments, together with appropriate supporting policies, should translate into higher economic growth over the medium term. This is the only option to address South Africa’s challenges of unemployment and inequality.

“The improvement in the domestic sales numbers and the continued strong performance of export sales was one of the first positive signs for some time in the performance of a key strategic industry in the South African economy.

Another trend emerging in truck sales is highlighted by Hino, where more than 60% of all models sold so far this year are fitted with an automatic transmission.

The fully automatic transmissions available as an option on Hino trucks were launched first in the 300 range, in 2015 and are now available on most models in the new, Hino 500 Wide Cab range of trucks of 16-tons and above.

“We are delighted with the uptake on our models with automatic transmission, with customers enjoying benefits in terms of lower fuel consumption, no clutch replacement and subsequent downtime, as well as having a driver that is less stressed, which results in less vehicle damage and fewer accidents,” says Ernie Trautmann, vice president of Hino South Africa.

		June	July	August	September	October
LCV	Toyota	5172	5588	5179	5498	5099
	Nissan	2878	2869	2850	3055	2981
	Ford	2908	2667	2563	3048	2928
	Isuzu	1298	1372	1165	1193	1759
	Volkswagen	530	521	501	492	569
	Hyundai	285	319	334	300	391
	Mahindra	269	221	295	296	256
	GWM	173	174	153	163	160
	Kia	141	163	112	98	123
	Mercedes	48	90	70	58	63
	JMC	33	76	40	50	36
	Fiat	61	50	40	46	33
	Mitsubishi	48	42	38	26	31
	Tata	30	40	38	4	15
	Mazda	48	37	34	3	10
	Suzuki	3	6	31	3	8
	Peugeot	1	2	11	3	4
		June	July	August	September	October
MCV	Isuzu	205	189	195	214	261
	Mercedes	127	186	173	185	191
	Toyota	200	165	146	133	116
	Iveco	54	88	63	51	62
	Volkswagen	29	26	45	50	54
	Tata	4	19	36	25	46
	Hyundai	37	15	16	16	16
	JMC	11	15	10	9	11
	Peugeot	11	8	7	8	6
	Ford	4	8	7	6	5
	VECV	4	5	3	3	5
		June	July	August	September	October
HCV	Isuzu	80	160	181	153	153
	Volvo	75	102	98	99	109
	Toyota	56	85	85	80	95
	Tata	55	79	55	62	59
	Mercedes	44	62	50	60	56
	FAW	127	50	43	50	33
	VECV	8	9	7	8	7
	Iveco	5	4	4	6	4
		June	July	August	September	October
XHCV	Volvo	354	315	271	302	364
	Mercedes	313	259	229	286	294
	Scania	181	164	192	214	202
	MAN	179	161	125	197	171
	Toyota	54	56	42	38	40
	Powerstar	35	54	35	37	35
	Iveco	33	49	32	36	34
	Isuzu	25	39	27	32	30
	Tata	14	34	22	20	21
	FAW	13	17	16	13	15
	Babcock	8	8	10	8	15
		June	July	August	September	October
Bus	MAN	51	41	26	67	36
	Volvo	18	19	15	19	26
	Scania	8	14	14	18	21
	Iveco	5	12	12	16	18
	Mercedes	5	4	11	13	16
	Tata	1	1	4	0	4