These are South Africa’s 10 best-selling cars right now – and how much they cost

·4 Apr 2018

Despite fewer selling days in March due to public holidays, the new vehicle industry made an upward swing, with a total of 49,233 new vehicles sold reflecting a growth of 1.1% year on year.

This is according to new aggregated sales data from the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) which showed passenger car sales through the dealer channel contributing to the bulk of growth with an 8.8% increase when compared to the same month last year.

Speaking on the sales data, Ghana Msibi, WesBank’s executive head for Sales and Marketing, said that the increase was likely due to budgetary announcements and rising car costs in the country.

“Following the budget speech indicating an increase in VAT and ad valorem tax from 1 April, it is our view that consumers opted to avoid the increases these factors will have on vehicle purchase prices,” he said.

“These, combined with the renewed consumer and business confidence, and a reduction in the repo rate contributed to the growth in the passenger car segment.”

Msibi added that WesBank doesn’t anticipate the same aggressive market behavior in the retail environment for the remainder of the year. “

“We still expect a growth of around 3% for the dealer segment for 2018, and market sales should normalise going forward,” he said.

Best-selling cars

As part of its data, Naamsa also released the list of bestselling vehicles for March 2018.

While Volkswagen’s Polo and Polo Vivo placed at number one and two on the list respectively, Toyota is still the clear favourite for South Africans, with the brand selling a combined 11,378 vehicles compared to Volkswagen’s 7,541.

Other local favourites include Ford (5,595 vehicles sold), Nissan (5,410 vehicle sold) and Hyundai (3,065 units sold).

Below are the ten bestselling vehicles for March 2018 with prices.

Volkswagen Polo Vivo – from R179,900