The Motor Industry had a positive start to the year, marked by higher new vehicle sales, and a further interest rate cut of 25 basis points during the month of January.
Total domestic new vehicle sales in January 2025, at 46,398 units, reflected an increase of 4,375 units (10,4%) compared to January 2024.
Export sales increased by 5,803 units (29,7%) to 25,348 units in January 2025 compared to the corresponding month last year.
The January 2025 new passenger car market at 34,530 units had registered an increase of 18,3%, compared to the 29,181 new cars sold in January 2024. Interesting is that Car rental sales accounted for a sound 19,1%, or one out of five new passenger vehicles sold during the month.
Sales for medium and heavy truck segments of the industry reflected a mixed performance in January 2025 with the Medium truck segment that recorded 569 units sold versus 510 units sold in January last year and in the case of heavy trucks and buses with 1 398 sales, a decrease of 40 vehicles, compared to the 1 438 units sold in the corresponding month last year.
More good news is that vehicle exports showed promising growth in January 2025 compared to 2024. However, the trajectory of trade policies under the new US Administration remains uncertain.
Car Hijacking:
The hijacking trends and brand preferences also change with time and is normally linked to the popularity factor in the market. Strangely enough, there are even four Chinese brands that made it to the target list!
According to the Fidelity Services Group, there was a 27% decrease in hijackings between November and December 2024.
Wahl Bartmann, CEO of Fidelity Group, told Business Tech that this decline is due to a seasonal dip in organised crime activity as syndicate members often take holidays during the festive season.
Hijackings are expected to rise again from late January, with a big jump in February and March 2025.
Popular models that are targeted due to the high demand for their parts or resale value, included cars from Toyota, Volkswagen, and Ford that have been the most targeted vehicles.
Brands like Chery and GWM, whose sales have skyrocketed over the last decade, are now being flagged by security groups as increasingly vulnerable. This means more of these cars are on the road, creating a bigger market for their parts.
Loadshedding surprise:
Eskom announced on very short notice that stage 3 load shedding will be implemented on Friday (31 January) and will run for the weekend or longer and it could hit as hard as stage four!
Eskom said that it experienced several breakdowns at some of their power stations that required it to use its reserves.
At a State of the System media briefing on Friday, electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said that Eskom and the government had always made it clear that loadshedding was not over.
South Africans have experienced a long period of no load shedding, and with almost 10 months of no outages. Then the “perfect storm” hit, including the following:
• Some Units were out for planned maintenance
• 6 units at key power stations broke down – of which 5 are still offline
• Other downed units were delayed in coming back
• The reserves have been exhausted, and the reserve margins have to be maintained
In closing, I would like to compliment and thank Naamsa for yet again on time and accurate reporting and also Bussinestech for providing valuable market related news.
– Cobus Lourens –
