Naamsa has released its industry report for March 2020 but has seemingly opted to no longer show South Africa’s individual model sales figures, instead putting out only aggregate sales and export numbers.

Unfortunately, that means we’re not able to bring you our usual lists of SA’s best- and worst-selling vehicles. So, rather frustratingly, we’ll have to settle for a list of the 10 best-selling passenger car and light-commercial vehicle brands instead.

For the record, Naamsa said South Africa did not escape the “unprecedented challenges” facing the world thanks to lockdowns implemented across all major auto-manufacturing countries in an attempt to flatten the COVID-19 curve.

As expected, then, the aggregate domestic new vehicle sales numbers continued to decline on the back of the recent developments around the coronavirus and "challenging economic conditions". The new vehicle sales statistics for March 2020 reflected a "substantial decline" of 14 150 units or 29,7 percent from the 47 695 vehicles sold in March 2019 to the aggregate domestic sales of 33 545 units in March 2020.

Furthermore, export sales at 28 883 units registered a "huge fall" of 7 905 units or a decline of 21,5 percent compared with the 36 788 vehicles exported in March last year.

The March 2020 new passenger car market registered a “sizeable decline” of 8 139 cars or a fall of 26,8 percent to 22 200 units compared with the 30 339 new cars sold in March 2019. Domestic sales of new light-commercial vehicles, bakkies and mini-buses at 9 425 units recorded a “significant decline” of 5 570 units or a fall of 37,1 percent from the 14 995 light commercial vehicles sold during the corresponding month last year.

So, what about those best-selling brands? Well, check out the list below...

South Africa’s 10 best-selling brands for March 2020:

1. Toyota: 8 715 units (with 4 229 exports)
2. Volkswagen Group: 5 499 units (with 8 461 exports)
3. Nissan: 2 775 units (with 130 exports)
4. Ford: 2 667 units (with 6 363 exports)
5. Hyundai: 2 245 units
6. Mercedes-Benz: 1 506 units, estimated (with 5 004 exports, estimated)
7. Renault: 1 426 units
8. Suzuki: 1 249 units
9. Isuzu: 1 224 units (with 250 exports)
10. Kia: 1 003 units

Original article from Car