Bumper year for new vehicle sales

It's been a bumper year for new vehicle sales in South Africa so far in 2025 with the overall number of sales reported to naamsa for the ten months to October (493 070 units) only 4% behind the full year total for 2024 (515 977 units).

The January - October market total this year is the best ten-month domestic total since 2015 (517 154). The performance of the Passenger Vehicle market is even more impressive with sales to October only 1% less than the full twelve-month number for 2024, and the year-to-date sales (347 668 units) the highest since 2014 (369 947).

New vehicle sales in October 2025 (55 973 units) were 16.1% up on October 2024, according to naamsa, and 2.4% higher than September. The strong year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in October continues a run of eight months of double-digit growth as new vehicle sales continue to reap the benefits of lower interest rates. At present Lightstone is forecasting 2025 sales to climb by almost 14% from 2024's numbers.

Passenger Vehicle sales climbed 14.9% y-o-y in October to 39 648 units, and Light Commercial Vehicles sales (LCV) were 24.1% higher, reaching 13 376 units, when compared with October 2024. This was the strongest Passenger sales month since October 2014.

New vehicle sales

Overall sales for the opening ten months of 2025 were 15.7% higher than for 2024, and 10.5% above sales for the same window in 2023. naamsa reported 493 070 units sold between January and October, of which 83% represented dealer sales. Passenger Vehicle sales were up 21.3% y-o-y for the ten months, and sales of LCVs are 5.3% ahead compared to 2024. The car rental industry accounted for 14.8% of new Passenger sales in the January - October window, ahead of the 14.3% share for the same period in 2024 and 13.7% in 2023.

Passenger and Light Commercial new vehicle sales: January - October

As mentioned, Lightstone anticipates the market to grow in 2025. While there have been pressures throughout the macroeconomic environment during the year, both locally and globally, domestic sales have continued to accelerate. Domestic GDP is expected to grow at 1% in 2025, after coming in at 0.6% in 2024. While the Rand continues to show resilience against the US dollar, it is projected to weaken marginally against other major global currencies, and headline consumer inflation is expected to remain within the Reserve Bank's new official 2% - 4% target range.

In more good news for auto sales, the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank cut interest rates again in November by 25 basis points, bringing the total reduction over the last fourteen months to 150 basis points.

Anticipated new vehicle sales for 2025 now sit at around 592 000 units, of which 560 500 are Light Vehicles (Passenger and Light Commercial). Overall, growth in new vehicle sales is expected to end 2025 in the region of 14.8% (up on the August projection of 11.1%), and would mark the largest annual total since 2015, the last time domestic sales topped 600 000 units in a year. This is well above the -3% growth in new vehicle sales in 2024, which produced the weakest annual sales figures in three years.

A preliminary forecast for 2026 shows a total market volume of 604 500 units, of which 572 000 are Light Vehicles and 32 500 other Commercials.

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) continues to be the best-selling Light Vehicle (Passenger and LCV markets) bodyshape in South Africa, with 202 676 new units sold (87% were Dealer sales, and 8.9% reported through the Rental channel) across the first ten months of 2025.

Sales in this category were up 34% from the same window in 2024, making it the best performing Light Vehicle segment in terms of sales growth, and its share of 43.4% of all Light Vehicle sales for the January - October window was higher than the 37.8% recorded for the same timeframe in 2024.

The second-best performing bodyshape in terms of volume was the Hatch (which includes Suzuki Swift, Toyota Starlet and VW Polo Vivo) with 113 926 units sold between January and October. Sales for the Hatch shape were up by 11.4% compared to the same window in 2024.

The second most improved bodyshape for y-o-y growth over the first ten months of 2025 was the Panel Van category (which includes the Hyundai Grand i10 Cargo, Nissan Magnite Move and Suzuki Eeco). Sales in 2025 (6 529 units) were 32.4% higher than the equivalent window in 2024.

Light Vehicle bodyshapes - share of Light Vehicle market (January to October)

Hybrid and Electric Vehicle sales

Y-o-y growth in new Hybrid and Electric Passenger Vehicle sales (which includes Traditional Hybrid, Plug-in Hybrid and Battery Electric vehicles), as reported to naamsa, for the first ten months of 2025 was up 8.1% at 13 358 units, on 2024, which in turn had jumped 105% from 2023. The full Passenger market share for these vehicles was 3.8% for the first ten months of 2025.

While there are non-reporters operating in this sub-segment, it is unlikely that they would have contributed more than an additional 0.4% market share to this portion of the market.

January to October - Hybrid and Electric Vehicle share of Passenger sales

Traditional Hybrid Vehicles contributed 77.6% of the reported sales in the sub-segment over the first ten months of 2025, with Battery Electric Vehicles making up 6.4% of sales and Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles responsible for 16%.

Vehicle price inflation

New Light Vehicle price inflation in South Africa rose just 0.5% y-o-y in September 2025, reflecting 21 consecutive months where new vehicle price inflation has come in below Headline CPI (as released by StatsSA - September = 3.4%). The September number was slightly lower than the August y-o-y increase of 0.9%. On a monthly basis, September vehicle price inflation was 1.5% down on August, which in turn was 0.9% up on July.

Lightstone's new Light Vehicle Price Inflation vs Headline Consumer Price Inflation: January 2025 - September 2025

Used Passenger Vehicle inflation y-o-y for 2-year-old vehicles was -0.8% at the end of October (meaning that, on average, a 2-year-old Passenger car was retaining 0.8% less of its original value in October 2025 than a 2-year-old car a year ago). This is marginally higher than September (-1%), and an improvement over October 2024 (-2%).

For 4-year-old vehicles, inflation was running at -1.3% y-o-y in October, up from September (-1.6%) and -2.9% in October last year. A 6-year-old Passenger vehicle was retaining 1.4% less of its value in October 2025 than in October 2024. This was an improvement on the September figure of -1.6%, as well as the October 2024 inflation, which was -2.8% y-o-y.