New vehicle sales accelerate

New vehicle sales in June 2025 (47 210 units) were 18.5% up on June 2024, according to naamsa, and 4.4% higher than May.

The year-on-year (y-o-y) growth reflects both market weakness in June 2024 following the national elections, and subsequent strengthening demand after the interest rates were reduced towards the end of 2024. Given the changing sentiment, Lightstone anticipates sales in 2025 will climb by more than 7.5% from 2024’s numbers.

Passenger vehicle sales were up 21.5% year-on-year in June to 32 512 units, and Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) sales were 14.8% higher, reaching 12 118 units, when compared with June 2024.

New vehicle sales

Overall sales for the opening six months of 2025 were 13.5% higher than for 2024, and 5% above the same window in 2023. naamsa reported 278 891 units sold between January and June, of which around 85% represented Dealer sales.

Passenger vehicle sales were up 21.3% y-o-y for the six months, but sales of LCVs fell by 1.7%. The car rental industry accounted for 12.2% of new Passenger car sales in the January to June window, more than its share in the corresponding period in 2024 (10.8%) and 2023 (10.7%).

January to June – Passenger & Light Commercial new vehicle sales

As indicated earlier, Lightstone currently anticipates the market to grow in 2025, but continued macroeconomic pressures, both locally and globally, could have a negative impact as the year progresses.

Domestic GDP is expected to grow at 1.2% in 2025 (0.6% in 2024), while it’s anticipated the Rand will weaken marginally against major global currencies and headline consumer inflation is expected to remain within the Reserve Bank’s 3% - 6% target range.

However, in good news for auto sales, the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank cut interest rates by a total of 100 basis points in the past twelve months.

Anticipated new vehicle sales for 2025 sit at around 555 500 units, of which 524 000 are Light Vehicles (Passenger and Light Commercial). Overall, growth in new vehicle sales is expected to end 2025 in the region of 7.7% (up on the May projection of 7.1%). This is well above the -3% growth in new vehicle sales in 2024, the weakest produced in three years.

New vehicle sales – 2020 to 2025

Market observations - bodyshape

The Crossover/SUV bodyshape (which includes the Chery Tiggo 4 Pro, Haval Jolion and Toyota Corolla Cross) was the best-selling Light Vehicle (Passenger & LCV markets) bodyshape in South Africa in the first six months of 2025, with 115 045 new units sold (88.8% Dealer sales, and 6.8% through the Rental channel).

The category’s sales rose 37.1% over the same period in 2024, making it the fastest-growing Light Vehicle segment. Its January to June market share reached 43.5%, up from 36.3% last year. The Hatch – including the Suzuki Swift, Toyota Starlet, and VW Polo Vivo – ranked second in sales volume with 63 991 units sold from January to June, up 6.2% over the same period in 2024.

The Minibus/MPV category (which includes the Hyundai Staria, Suzuki Ertiga and Toyota Rumion) recorded sales of 8 590 units in the first six months of 2025, 25.1% higher than the equivalent window in 2024.

Light Vehicle bodyshapes – share of Light Vehicle market (January to June)

Hybrid & Electric vehicle sales

New Hybrid & Electric Passenger vehicle sales (which includes Traditional Hybrid, Plug-in Hybrid and Battery Electric vehicles), as reported to naamsa, were down 0.9% (7 102 units), for the first six months in 2025 compared to the same period last year, which had recorded a 124% jump from the comparable period in 2023. The full Passenger market share for these vehicles was 3.6% for the first six months of 2025.

It is unlikely non-reporters operating in this sub-segment would have contributed more than an additional 0.2% share to this portion of the market.

January to June – Hybrid & Electric Vehicle share of Passenger sales

Traditional Hybrid vehicles contributed 84.5% of the reported sales in the sub-segment over the first six months of 2025, with Battery Electric vehicles making up 8.5% of sales and Plug-in Hybrid vehicles responsible for 7%.

Vehicle price inflation

New Light Vehicle price inflation in South Africa rose 1.3% y-o-y in May 2025, the 17th successive month it has come in below Headline CPI (as released by StatsSA – May = 2.8%). The May number was also lower than the April y-o-y increase of 1.6%. On a monthly basis, May vehicle price inflation climbed 2.9% from April, which in turn was 0.2% up on March.

Lightstone’s New Light Vehicle price inflation vs Headline Consumer Price Inflation

Used Passenger vehicle inflation y-o-y for 2-year-old vehicles was -1% at the end of June (meaning that, on average, a 2-year-old Passenger car was retaining 1% less of its original value in June 2025 than a 2-year-old car was a year ago). This is marginally higher than May (-1.2%), and an improvement over June 2024 (-2.1%). For 4-year-old vehicles, inflation was running at -1.5% y-o-y in June, up from May (-1.8%) and the -3.1% in June last year. A 6-year-old Passenger vehicle was retaining 1.4% less of its value in April 2025 than in April 2024, this was an improvement on the May figure of -1.8%, as well as the June 2024 inflation which was -3% y-o-y.