Naamsa has released its new-vehicle sales statistics for June 2020, which show a 30,7 percent fall compared with the same month last year.
As the organisation points out, the country’s automotive industry was able to resume full operations in June 2020 under the current COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Still, despite being “markedly up” from the previous two months, the new-vehicle market continued to “remain under severe pressure”.
According to Naamsa, June 2020 new-vehicle sales reflected a “substantial decline” of 14 086 units to 31 867 units. Export sales, at 18 796 units, meanwhile, registered a fall of 11 871 units or 38,7 percent compared with June last year.
Overall, out of the total reported industry sales of 31 867 vehicles, an estimated 29 100 units or 91,3 percent represented dealer sales, 4,6 percent sales to government, 3,7 percent to industry corporate fleets and an estimated 0,4 percent to the vehicle rental industry.
Naamsa says the June 2020 new passenger car market registered a “substantial” year-on-year decline of 9 667 cars or 33,4 percent to 19 264 units.
“With the tourism sector still under lockdown restrictions, there was virtually no contribution by the car rental industry to support the market as is normally the case this time of the year,” Naamsa pointed out.
Meanwhile, SA sales of new light commercial vehicles, bakkies and mini-buses at 10 189 units during June 2020 recorded a “sizeable” year-on-year decline of 4 308 units or 29,7 percent.
The medium and heavy truck segments of the industry reflected a “mixed performance” and at 611 units and 1 803 units, respectively, showed a decline of 26,6 percent in the case of the former and an increase of 6,5 percent in the case of the latter, compared with the corresponding month in 2019.
“The outlook on domestic demand for new vehicles continues to remain under severe pressure. Middle-class disposable income was already under huge strain prior to the national lockdown resulting from COVID-19, which has significantly exacerbated the already weak macro-economic climate in the country,” Naamsa said.
*Note: Naamsa has opted to no longer show SA’s individual model sales figures, instead putting out only aggregate sales and export numbers. Thus, we are unable to compile lists of the country’s best-selling vehicles for June 2020…
