Although year-on-year vehicle sales are continuing to drop, the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa) said that monthly sales figures are showing some signs of improvement.

Total new vehicle sales fell 22,4% year on year last month to 31726 and new passenger car sales dropped 20% year on year to 20266. Naamsa said domestic new car and commercial vehicle sales registered further declines.

Naamsa said vehicle sales in most market segments recorded “modest improvements” month on month. Total vehicle sales increased 6% last month, compared with August.

“After marginal growth in June and July and a small decline in August, September sales are reassuring, but by no means an indication yet of the market making significant gains,” said Ford SA’s vice-president of sales and marketing Jacques Brent. New light commercial vehicles, bakkies and minibuses declined 21,9% year on year last month to 9867.

In the medium and heavy truck segments, sales registered steeper decrease with new medium commercial vehicles plunging 35,8% year on year last month to 551 and new heavy commercial vehicles plummeting 48,6% to 1042.

Malcolm Gauld, vice-president of sales and marketing at General Motors SA, said the market performance of the heavy commercial vehicle market continued to show softer overall trends.

“Transporters’ ability to access funding from the banking institutions continues to affect both new and used vehicle sales through all the truck segments,” Gauld said.

New export vehicle sales declined 49,3% to 13974 on the global financial crisis.

Source: Business Day