Modest growth in vehicle sales

Pretoria - Vehicle sales in February showed modest growth compared to the same period last year, growing by 6.4%, the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) said.

Aggregate industry sales improved by 3 159 units or 6.4% to 52 356 vehicles from 49 197 units in February 2011.

Aggregate industry new car sales in February at 36 357 units -- which include Mercedes-Benz South Africa (MBSA) -- showed an improvement of 2 303 units compared to the 34 054 new cars sold in February last year. MBSA is, for the time being, providing a single total sales number for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and export sales.

In January's vehicle data, the association said that MBSA received a global directive by parent company Daimler AG (Germany) instructing MBSA not to report disaggregated sales data for the meantime. It will, however, provide a single total sales number for passenger cars and commercial vehicles.

"The new car market had received support from car rental industry demand, which accounted for about 10.5% of total new car sales," said Naamsa on Friday.

Overall, out of the total detailed (disaggregated) reported industry sales of 49 556 vehicles (excluding MBSA), 82.2% represented dealer sales, while 7.6% represented sales to the vehicle rental industry, 5.8% sales to government and 4.4% to industry corporate fleet sales.

Industry total commercial vehicle sales at 15 999 units showed an improvement of 5.7% compared to the 15 143 units sold in February last year.

South African produced export vehicles, including Mercedes-Benz, at 22 630 had registered a 10% decline compared to February 2011.

"Industry export sales were expected to improve from April 2012 onwards as the Ford global compact vehicle export programme and the BMW new 3 series export volumes were ramped up," said the association, adding that exports to Europe were likely to soften because of the debt crisis in the Eurozone. 

"This could be offset by higher export volumes to African countries. At this stage, it was anticipated that for the year as a whole, vehicle exports could grow by about 10% to just over 300 000 units."

Naamsa expects total industry sales for 2012 to be of modest growth.

"Factors that would continue to lend support to the domestic market included the on-going 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. 

"Domestic sales were expected to continue to reflect growth, but at a relatively subdued rate," said the association. - BuaNews