Ford Ranger has retained its position as South Africa's second best-selling bakkie, but jumped two places in November to also be the second best-selling vehicle in the country for the month. Image: Ford
The brakes continued to be slammed on new vehicle sales in November, with the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) recording its biggest decrease of the year so far.
While no change prevailed at the top of the best-selling vehicle’s list, still headed by the Toyota Hilux on 3 073, its arch rival, the Ford Ranger, jumped from its traditional fourth position to second on 2 234 ahead of the relegated Volkswagen Polo Vivo (1 913) and Toyota Corolla Cross (1 766).
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Swapping fifth and sixth places from October were the Isuzu D-Max (1 662) and Toyota HiAce (1 549), followed by the Toyota Starlet (1 176) in an unchanged seventh position.
Set to be discontinued next year, the Nissan NP200 rose two positions from 10th in October to eighth in November on 1 152, with ninth place going to the Suzuki Swift (1 117) ahead of third model assembled in India, the Hyundai Grand i10 (1 002).
A downturn largely blamed on the implementation of stage six load shedding as well as logistical backlogs at the country’s ports, all but one of the various segments ended on a negative note with overall sales for November falling 13.4% from last year’s 49 986 to 43 281.
In the mentioned segments, new passenger vehicle fell 12.5% from 33 436 to 29 252, while light commercial vehicles shed a significantly more 16.2% from 2022’s 13 467 to 11 279 in 2023.
Less severe, but still in the red, medium-duty commercial vehicle sales lost 13.5% from 908 to 785, and heavy-duty commercials 10.7% for a total of 1 965 versus 2 175 of November last year.
Despite the mentioned port crisis, vehicle exports recorded a second straight month of increases 33 207 to 41 008 for a total uptake of 23.5%.
In terms of top 10 brands, an unchanged top four prevailed in November with Toyota placing ahead of Volkswagen, Suzuki and Ford on 11 891 versus 5 513, 4 368 and 2 910 respectively
Trading fifth and sixth places though, Nissan (2 779 finished ahead of Hyundai (2 532), with Isuzu keeping station in seventh with sales of 2 109 and Renault in eighth place on 1 802.
Reversing the final two places from October were Haval and Kia on 1 556 and 1 546 respectively.
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