SA’s best quarter for vehicle sales in over a decade

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SIMON BROWN: I’m chatting now with Ayesha Hatea, Director Of Research and Consulting at TransUnion Africa. Ayesha, appreciate the time. TransUnion’s third-quarter 2025 Mobility Insights Report is out, looking at vehicle sales. A strong quarter for vehicle sales, best in over a decade, and perhaps even as good a piece of news as that low vehicle-price inflation. It really was a giant quarter for the sector.

AYESHA HATEA: Good morning. Thanks, Simon, for having me. Yes, we say maybe the market is finally taking a break. We know in the last couple of years it has been taking quite a strain; it hasn’t quite recovered here post Covid. But this quarter has been really awesome. And yes, the inflation is at an all-time low, 1.5%. It’s the lowest in almost 20 years, which is really, really good.

SIMON BROWN: And are we seeing a lot of Chinese vehicles coming to the fore? Certainly anecdotally I chat with the likes of different companies, CMH and others, and they are talking China vehicles. Is that coming through in the broader data?

AYESHA HATEA: It is, definitely. If we look at the top 10, 15 vehicles sold, we can definitely see the Chinese brands creeping up there. Their total [market share] has grown to more than 15%. It was at less than 10% a couple of years ago. So they really are growing quite quickly. South Africans do want value for their money, and the Chinese brands are delivering that. They’ve modern features, stylish design and there is good tech at prices that that beat some of the traditional brands that we’re seeing. So yes, their growth has been massive, almost nine times faster than the rest of the market.

SIMON BROWN: You make a good point there, their value. We all like value but the cars look good. The tech is real. This is in many senses a structural reset that’s happening. It’s probably happening in other markets too, but it’s certainly happening in the South African market.

AYESHA HATEA: Yes, 100%. We are seeing that reset – and that’s the demand again coming from South Africans. We want affordable feature-packed cars and that is becoming the new normal – that demand of what South Africans are looking for. They are changing how they choose their price. Yes, it’s also about the technology that they get and the trust that they have within these brands.

So  the brands do need to understand that they need to keep shifting to keep growing and those that don’t will unfortunately fall behind.

SIMON BROWN: Yes, absolutely. Did this report give a sense of who is buying in terms of perhaps LSMs, perhaps ages? Or is it just general population?

AYESHA HATEA: We do do breakdowns. We have many other reports that support this – one being our Consumer Pulse Survey. We actually ask consumers in terms of what is driving their car buying, entries, what kind of cars they are looking at, and we break that down into the different generations.

We can see that, if we look at the Generator Zs and the millennials, they seem so much more eager to enter the market. They’ve been quite delayed in the last couple of years, but they’re coming in. They’re also worrying about their pockets, looking at affordability.

The other concept that’s coming out, specifically with the Generator Z and Millennials, is total cost of ownership. So [they are] doing the research, not just looking at costs up front. What is the fuel consumption, what is the insurance, what is the maintenance? All of these factors are playing into the car-buying decisions that our consumers are making.

Knowledge is power and we agree 100%. Do the research, find out how it’s going to affect your wallet, not just on day one, but in years to come.

SIMON BROWN: That’s a great point. It’s not just the sticker price; it’s all those other bits around it.

Electric vehicles? Perhaps we do non-ICE [internal combustion engine] because of course there are hybrids and plug-in hybrids and the like. In South Africa it seems to still be very early days. Are we seeing increased interest in this space?

AYESHA HATEA: We do see increasing interest, very small amounts, when we’re talking about overall percentages. The bigger percentage still goes towards ICE, as you said. But there are a lot of factors that play into that, and the one is definitely affordability. We do find the price points of these electric vehicles slightly higher, but also infrastructure. If you think about it, we call it the ‘range anxiety’ – knowing if you get in your car how far you’re going to get, or whether you’re going to find a charging station along the way.

But it’s nice to see that certain brands are coming on board, and they are actually looking to build that infrastructure, especially on the longer roads, city hubs. As that support grows and that range anxiety sort of reduces, we probably will see a bigger uptake of these EVs, because there is definitely interest, people looking for those greener options and, again, the total cost of ownership coming down with the fuel savings.

SIMON BROWN: Yes, absolutely. I’ve a four-hour drive next week and I’m going to pass dozens of petrol stations. I need to start passing doubles of EV stations – and then we can talk.

A last question – exports. They were high, a  six-year high. I have to say I think that surprised many with the tariffs being thrown around, but our exports were actually strong in the third quarter.

AYESHA HATEA: Yes, that did bounce back. We did see higher shipment numbers for the last six years. And so, again, it’s the confidence in the market also leveraging. I don’t know, maybe some of the tariff scare brought forward some of the exports. But we did see that rebound.

So overall confidence in the industry has gone up. Even dealer confidence has climbed to a second positive reading for the year. Overall both local sales and export performance are moving in the right direction, which we’re very happy about.

SIMON BROWN: I take the point. This was the quarter to end-September. So there might have been some pull forward on those exports. We’ll have a look and check in on Q4.

We’ll leave it there. Ayesha Hatea, director of research consulting at TransUnion Africa, I appreciate the time.