INLSA

02/02/2012 (clock wise) Craig van der Berg customer and Obakeng Mokoditwa sales executive at the Eagle corner show room in Bramley JHB. (263) Photo: Leon Nicholas

Roy Cokayne

Supported by strong demand from the vehicle rental industry, new car sales last month rose to the highest level for the month of January in the past five years.

Figures released by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa) yesterday revealed that new passenger vehicle sales grew last month by 7.5 percent year on year to 35 428 units.

Nico Vermeulen, Naamsa’s executive director, said that the new car market last month had received support from strong demand by car rental companies, with the vehicle rental industry accounting for about 17 percent of total new car sales.

Tony Twine, a motor industry analyst and director of Econometrix, said that the rate of annual growth of the trend cycle for vehicle sales volumes was dropping for both the light and heavier vehicle segments, and this decline had accelerated last month.

Twine said this confirmed the pre-emptive buying in the last five months of last year was over.

The pre-emptive buying was prompted by fears among consumers and business that the weakness in the exchange rate of the rand would lead to price increases. Twine said this pre-emptive buying was present in other durable goods sales areas, such as white goods, which were very strong in the last few months of last year and a contradiction of the prevailing slow economic growth.

He estimated pre-emptive buying had inflated new car sales by about 15 000 units in the last five months of last year.

Vermeulen said the absence of segmental data from Mercedes-Benz South Africa for commercial vehicle sales because of a directive by parent company Daimler of Germany made year-on-year comparisons difficult.

The focus for the time being would therefore be on total commercial vehicle sales, which last month increased by 2 percent to 12 394 units from the 12 144 unit sales in January last year.

Chris De Kock, the executive head of sales and marketing at WesBank, said new vehicle sales last month were higher than expected and continued to be driven by ideal buying conditions for consumers, such as the current low interest rate environment, combined with launches of new models in the marketplace supported by favourable offers by the manufacturers.

Wessel Steffans, the head of sales at Absa Vehicle and Asset Finance, said new vehicle sales last month were in line with its expectations and Absa was projecting a 5 percent growth in new vehicle sales this year.

Johan van Zyl, the president and chief executive of Toyota South Africa Motors, said the year had started positively but warned of the need to be wary of considering new vehicle sales in January in isolation because many manufacturers ended their calendar year early and transferred sales to the first month of the new year.

Many new vehicle owners also delayed the registration of their December purchases to first register them at the beginning of the new year.