The market shrinks

By Colin Windel

Any benefit from the recent interest rate cut and the fact Moodys did not further downgrade the country was not felt in commercial vehicle sales numbers through March, where all segments returned a slight decline compared to the same period last year.

According to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (NAAMSA), domestic sales of new light commercial vehicles, bakkies and mini buses were marginally weaker and at 14 701 units during March, 2018 registered a fall of 345 vehicles or a decline of 2,3% compared to the 15 046 sold during the corresponding month last year. 

Sales in the low volume medium and heavy truck segments of the Industry once again remained under pressure and at 722 units and 1 634 units, respectively, recorded a fall of 123 vehicles or a decline of 14,6% in the case of medium commercial vehicles and, in the case of heavy trucks and buses, a decline of 141 vehicles or a fall of 7,9% compared to the corresponding month last year. 

Continuing lower commercial vehicle sales figures reflected subdued investment sentiment in the economy. 

In a statement the association said: “Medium term prospects for the South African economy improved considerably on the back of the decision by Moody’s to retain South Africa’s international and domestic credit rating at investment grade with a stable outlook as well as the 0,25% reduction in official interest rate at the end of March, 2018. 

“In addition, the continuing strength in the exchange rate should impact positively on new vehicle price inflation going forward.  As a result of these developments – together with improved business and consumer confidence – economic growth for 2018 could recover to around 2% and this in turn would benefit domestic new vehicle sales over the balance of the year.  At this stage, NAAMSA anticipated that, on an annualised basis, new vehicle sales could improve by around 3%, in volume terms, compared to 2017. 

“The outlook for the global economy was one of fairly strong growth which should benefit new vehicle exports going forward.  Factoring the impact of model run out and model run in on the part of one major exporter, a modest increase in annual vehicle export sales volumes was still possible in 2018.” 

 

LCV	Toyota	5746
	Nissan	2999
	Ford	2908
	Isuzu	1273
	Volkswagen	532
	Mahindra	294
	Hyundai	293
	Kia	113

 

MCV	Toyota	234
	Mercedes	184
	GWM	163
	Isuzu	154
	Fiat	104
	Iveco	64
	Tata	23
	Volkswagen	18

 

HCV	Isuzu	125
	Toyota	101
	FAW	68
	Volvo	62
	Mercedes	49
	Tata	36
	Fiat	10
	Iveco	4
XHCV	Volvo	286
	Mercedes	267
	Scania	156
	MAN	140
	Iveco	49
	Babcock	41
	Toyota	36
	Powerstar	34

 

Bus	MAN	37
	Scania	30
	Mercedes	22
	Volvo	3
	Isuzu	1