February truck sales jump in South Africa

ERJ staff report (DS)

Pretoria, South Africa -- The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (NAAMSA) has relased data on new vehicle salesfor for the month of February, 2011. The data shows shaet growth in heavy trucks as well as healthy growth in other segments.

NAAMSA commented that, in particular new car as well as medium and heavy commercial vehicle sales, had registered exceptional gains compared to the corresponding month last year. Aggregate industry sales had improved by 9 880 units or 25,2 percent to 49 164 vehicles from 39 284 units in February last year. The current strength in the market reflects the strong underlying momentum and it was encouraging that total industry sales for the first two months of 2011 were 21,9 percent ahead of the corresponding two months in 2010. Attractive special incentive packages offered by a number of manufacturers/importers during the month of February, 2011 also contributed to the rise in sales volumes.

Overall, out of the total NAAMSA reported Industry Sales of 49 164 vehicles, 80,3 percent or 39 505 units represented dealer sales, 10,2 percent represented Sales to the Car Rental Industry, 6,0 percent sales to Government and 3,5 percent to Industry Corporate Fleet Sales.

Aggregate Industry New Car Sales during February 2011 at 34 056 units reflected a substantial improvement of 8 077 units or 31,1 percent compared to the 25 979 new cars sold during February 2010.

Sales of Industry New Light Commercial vehicles, bakkies and minibuses at 12 854 units during February, 2011 reflected an improvement of 1 307 units or 11,3 percent compared to the 11 547 units of the corresponding month last year. Sales also reflected an improvement of 21,8 percent compared to the previous month of January, 2011 which could be attributed to some pre-emptive buying to avoid the new CO2 tax on double-cab light commercial vehicles to be implemented from 1st March, 2011.

Sales of vehicles in the Medium and Heavy Truck segments of the industry, with the exception of the bus segment, continued the strong upward momentum and the February, 2011 sales at 861 units and 1 393 units, respectively, had recorded a gain of 271 units or 45,9 percent, in the case of medium commercials, and 225 units or 19,3 percent in the case of Heavy Trucks and Buses - compared to the corresponding month last year.

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Press release (Market summary) from NAAMSA

Press release (New sales data by manufacturer) from NAAMSA

Press release (Historical chart data) from NAAMSA

Press release from NAAMSA

Press release from NAAMSA