New car sales show strong rise

Year-on-year new car sales rose significantly last month, the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa) said on Monday.

"Assisted by new model introductions and an improvement in stock availability... new car sales during May 2012 had been surprisingly strong," Naamsa said in a statement.

Aggregate industry new car sales in May, which sat at 34,820 units had improved by 5,999 units or 20.8% from the 28,821 new cars sold in May 2011.

Naamsa said the year-on-year growth of new car sales in May had risen to its best level in the past eight months with the figure at 11.3% ahead of the corresponding five months of 2011.

Sales of new light commercial vehicles, bakkies and minibuses were recorded at 12,907 units during May and reflected an increase of 2,287 units or 21.5% compared to the 10,620 units last year.

Sales of vehicles in the medium and heavy truck segments of the industry had recorded an increase of 135 units or 18.1%, in the case of medium commercial vehicles, and a rise of 183 units or 12.7%, in the case of heavy trucks and buses. "Most manufacturers in these sectors reported strong order books going forward," Naamsa said.

Exports of South African produced motor vehicles, including MBSA export sales data, had registered an improvement of 560 units or 2.5% compared to the 22,060 vehicles exported in May last year. Naamsa said industry export sales were expected to improve over the remainder of the year as the Ford vehicle export programme and the BMW new 3 series export volumes "were ramped up".

"Vehicle exports into Europe were likely to continue under pressure as a result of the recession and debt crisis in the Eurozone," Naamsa said. "The recent sharp depreciation in the exchange rate was also likely to result in pre-emptive buying over the next few months as consumers sought to purchase vehicles to avoid the possible impact of the lower exchange rate on new vehicle prices."

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