SA car sales rise

| Wednesday March 3, 2010 00:00

February marked a second consecutive month of year-on-year increases after nearly three years of declining sales, when the industry was one of the hardest hit by a global downturn and weak consumer demand.

'Despite the low base last year, it was encouraging that total industry sales for the first two months of 2010 were 18 percent ahead of the corresponding two months in 2009,' the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers said in a statement.

'Statistically, this represented one of the best starts to a calendar year.'

NAAMSA said total industry sales climbed to 39,312 units last month -- the highest sales since late 2008 -- compared with 32,613 a year ago.

When stripping out sales from Associated Motor Holdings and Amalgamated Automobile Distributors -- which report separately -- sales rose by 16.2 percent to 34,314 units compared with February last year.

Total passenger car sales climbed 27.5 percent year-on-year.

However, NAAMSA said exports were down 5.1 percent at 14,123 vehicles in February compared with the same month in 2009.

South Africa's manufacturing sector led Africa's biggest economy out of recession last year and pushed growth to a faster-than-expected 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The auto industry is the biggest within manufacturing and a key employer and exporter. Manufacturing shed more than 200,000 of the almost 900,000 jobs the economy shed last year.

'Looking forward, the outlook for domestic sales for 2010 was improving and could gain momentum as economic activity levels improved further in the medium term,' NAAMSA said.

It added that demand from the car rental industry was expected to rise sharply in the lead up to South Africa's hosting of the soccer World Cup in June and July.

'Following the severe recession in domestic sales ... it was apparent that the automotive market in South Africa was at an early stage of what would hopefully represent a sustainable recovery.'-(Reuters)