The NAAMSA vehicle sales report for May shows total sales of 28 972 vehicles including sales reported by AMH. Although down by 32,9% on May last year the market performance for the month was ahead of the overall performance for four month period January through April and assisted in decreasing the year on year gap to 35,8%.

"Sales of passenger and light commercial vehicles show signs of stabilising at a new level around 35% down on 2008," says Johan van Zyl, President and CEO of Toyota South Africa. The heavy and extra heavy truck sectors are however a concern as sales in these sectors continue to decline. Heavy vehicle sales were down by 48% in May and extra heavies down by 61% for the month compared to May 08.

“While the motor industry, and the global economy, are certainly not out of the woods yet there are indications that a more positive mood could be emerging and that we may be near the bottom of the economic trough. The focus through the coming months will however be on stabilisation rather than any prospect of growth.  read more »

NAAMSA vehicle sales statistics for April report total sales of 26 283 units including those of AMH, a 43,7% reduction from the 46 643 sales reported for April last year. Passenger vehicles accounted for 16 748 of those sales, light commercial vehicles 7 481, medium commercials 691, and heavy commercials and busses 1 511 units.

“Economic activity in general, and sales of big ticket items in particular, will have been stunted by the considerable number of holidays during the month with a reduced number of selling days directly impacting on sales performance,” says Johan van Zyl, President and CEO of Toyota South Africa. “This will have been compounded by the fact that the short working weeks provided opportunities to optimise leave availability.

“If we remove the anomalies caused by the proliferation of public holidays the indications are that the vehicle sales trend has now entered a level phase.  read more »

Vehicle sales statistics released by NAAMSA show a levelling of sales through March. Total vehicle sales were 36 331 units including sales by AMH. Passenger vehicles accounted for 23 363 of those sales, light commercials 11 315, medium commercials 672, and heavy trucks and buses 1 006 units. March numbers reflect a slight improvement over January and February but are still down by 30% on March 2008.

“March was the third month in a row where we saw a relatively constant sales pattern, albeit in a market that is 30% down on the same month in 2008 and 34% year to date,” says Johan van Zyl, President and CEO of Toyota South Africa. “If this trend towards stability continues it will offer some respite for the industry as it will then be unlikely that we will see further cuts in production as we start to build on a new low volume base.  read more »

With February vehicle sales down 35.6% when compared to the same month last year, it’s evident that the vehicle market is feeling the effect of the credit crunch and the global economic turmoil.

Toyota achieved a market share of 22.9% in February with 7 453 sales. The company exported 6 802 vehicles for 45.5% share of export sales. In the combined domestic and export market Toyota accounted for 30% of sales.

“Although our banking and credit systems have proven to be more resilient than those in the developed economies of the world we are clearly not immune to the impact of the meltdown in those economies,” says Johan van Zyl, President and CEO of Toyota South Africa. “There is understandably a high level of caution being exercised by potential buyer.”  read more »

NAAMSA vehicle sales figures for December 2008 show total deliveries of 32 765 units for the month, a number that took total vehicle sales for the year to 533 327 units, which is 21% down on the 676 098 sales for 2007. In contrast vehicle exports of 284 213 vehicles were up by 66% on 171 237 exports for the previous year, due mainly to the success of Toyota’s Corolla and Hilux export programmes.

“Right from the start of 2008 we believed that the South African motor industry would endure a period of consolidation with significantly reduced sales volumes off a high base. High commodity prices in the first half of the year, crude oil in particular, impacted on disposable incomes as did continued upward pressure on interest rates. A total wild card was the devastation of the global financial system brought about by unmanageable levels of toxic debt accumulated in the system over years of global over indulgence. This situation accounted for a drop in sales of between 4 and 5% more than expected."

- Johan van Zyl, President and CEO of Toyota S.A.  read more »

NAAMSA sales statistics for March reflect the impact of Toyota's export drive as the Corolla sedan joined the Hilux as a volume export model during March. Toyota set a new all time South African motor industry record for export deliveries with 11 207 vehicles sent on their way to some 40 international destinations – 49% of all vehicle exports. This figure came close to the company's local sales of 12 408 units for the month. Toyota's performance boosted total vehicle exports for the month to a new benchmark of 22 888 units.

Total domestic sales for the industry were 52 240 in March. "If one looks only at the figures then the market performance in March indicates a significant drop off in performance but there were external influences that came into play during the month that impacted on sales and need to be considered," says Johan van Zyl, Toyota South Africa's President and CEO. "The most important of these is that we had a short trading month with the Easter long weekend falling in March rather than April.  read more »