VEHICLE sales continued their year-on-year decline last month, but monthly sales figures showed signs of improvement, the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa) said on Friday.
Total new vehicle sales fell 22,4% year on year last month to 31726 and new passenger car sales dropped 20% year on year to 20266.
Naamsa said domestic new car and commercial vehicle sales registered further declines.
Brand Pretorius, CEO of McCarthy, said subdued business and consumer confidence prevailed, undermining the propensity to buy.
“It is also likely that disposable income will remain under pressure in the coming months, which makes a significant improvement in new vehicle sales over the medium term improbable,” he said.
In the first three quarters of this year, new vehicle sales declined 30,3% to 294481.
Naamsa said vehicle sales in most market segments recorded “modest improvements” month on month. Total vehicle sales increased 6% last month, compared with August.
“After marginal growth in June and July and a small decline in August, September sales are reassuring, but by no means an indication yet of the market making significant gains,” said Ford SA’s vice-president of sales and marketing Jacques Brent. New light commercial vehicles, bakkies and minibuses declined 21,9% year on year last month to 9867.
In the medium and heavy truck segments, sales registered steeper decrease with new medium commercial vehicles plunging 35,8% year on year last month to 551 and new heavy commercial vehicles plummeting 48,6% to 1042.
Malcolm Gauld, vice-president of sales and marketing at General Motors SA, said the market performance of the heavy commercial vehicle market continued to show softer overall trends.
“Transporters’ ability to access funding from the banking institutions continues to affect both new and used vehicle sales through all the truck segments,” Gauld said.
New export vehicle sales declined 49,3% to 13974 on the global financial crisis.
On local vehicle sales, Mike Glendinning, sales and marketing director at Volkswagen SA, said the performance of the new passenger car market last month proved encouraging and supported the view that the decline in the new car sales cycle was bottoming out.
Glendinning said passenger cars last month recorded the largest monthly market reported this year and the underlying momentum in demand, as reflected by the selling rate of new cars per day during the month, grew for the second successive month to the highest level since September last year.
said sales of passenger and commercial vehicles increased last month and this indicated that the recovery in the car industry had started on lower interest rates and easier bank lending standards.
Citigroup economist Jean-Francois Mercier said new vehicle sales appeared to be stabilising after 2½ years of decline . He said the latest car sales added to other signs that the local economy bottomed out around mid-year and was likely to grow moderately in the second half.
artwelld@bdfm.co.za
September sales are reassuring, but by no means an indication yet of the market making gains