SA new-vehicle exports fell almost 30% in May, thanks largely to the continued suspension of production at Toyota’s vehicle assembly plant in Durban after severe floods in April.
In March, before April’s KwaZulu-Natal floods submerged parts of the plant, the company exported 6,837 cars and commercial vehicles.
In April, this number was down to 3,629 and in May, it was just 143 units. The result was an industry total of 25,788 exports in May — 29.9% lower than the 36,798 of May 2021.
The biggest drop, 58.9%, was in light commercial vehicles, which isn't surprising as Toyota’s Hilux bakkie is a major export product. Besides Hilux, the company also lost production of its best-selling Hiace minibus taxi.
The company’s problems were not the only cause of May’s export shortfall. Naamsa CEO Mike Mabasa also blamed a general drop in demand from export markets hurt by “rising interest rates, supply chain disruptions, resurgent Covid-19 waves [and] producer and consumer inflation at the highest levels in decades”.
For the first five months of 2022 aggregate exports are 6.2% lower than a year earlier — at 143,348 units compared with 152,813.
Figures released Wednesday show that domestic sales of new vehicles increased by 2.1% year on year in May, from 38,358 units to 39,177.
The increase was mainly due to car sales which rose by 13.8%, from 24,119 to 27,437.
Total sales of light commercial vehicles fell 22.6%, while those of medium and heavy trucks all grew from last year.
By the end of May, total new-vehicle sales in SA stood at 212,537 units, 12.2% higher than 189,380 a year ago.
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