The average purchase price of a car in South Africa right now

New vehicle sales data from vehicle financing company Wesbank shows that the average value of new cars financed in August was R377,252, down from R378,749 over the same month a year ago.

Demand in the new vehicle market continues to grow, despite the current inflationary cycle. “Applications for finance continue to show a growing demand for vehicle replacement, with WesBank’s book showing strong double-digit growth being driven by applications for new vehicles,” said Lebogang Gaoaketse, head of marketing and communications at WesBank.

Data from credit reporting agency TransUnion noted that the percentage of cars (new and used) being financed below R200,000, R200,000 to R300,000 and over R300,000 has had year on year movement for the second quarter of 2022, with a clear move from under R200,000 into the over R200,000 brackets.

Consumers continue to look for value in the used vehicle market, and recent interest rate hikes have not yet affected the numbers of consumers looking to purchase, it said.

And Signio, Lightstone’s online platform for the motor industry, found that the purchasing gap is slowly narrowing between the sexes, with women purchasing vehicles for an average price of R306,340 in 2022 versus men at R323,402.

Women are also buying more new vehicles – up to 46.1% in 2022 from just under 45% for the same period in 2020, Lightstone said. Their share of the used vehicle market has also steadily climbed from 31% in 2017 to 33% in 2022.

Female (New)

Female (Used)

Signio deals data for the last 36 months to July 2022 showed that 69.4% of men are buying vehicles without choosing a balloon payment option – the residual lump sum remaining at the end of a vehicle finance period – compared to women at just over 60%.

The difference largely comes from new vehicles, where 40.7% of men buy without a balloon payment as opposed to 33.6% for women.

TransUnion, meanwhile, showed that age groups buying new versus those buying used vehicles in the country in the second quarter of 2022. For new vehicles, the bulk of buyers are aged between 26 – 55. For people over the age of 55, purchasing a second-hand vehicle is preferred, while people below the age of 25 have very little access to the vehicle market in South Africa.

Read: The cars you can afford with your salary in South Africa right now