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New vehicle sales returned to positive growth in May following the traditionally poor April results, indicating that the market continues to be in recovery.
This is according to figures released by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa).
May new vehicle sales rose to 39,095 units, 9,5% ahead of last month and 35% higher than the same period last year. Year to date sales are 24.6% ahead of the first five months of 2009.
“April is a notoriously bad sales month, so not much should be read into May results against last month,” says vice president Marketing, Sales and Service, Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa, Jacques Brent. "We are concerned about May when viewed from a daily sales rate perspective, which indicates that May was under some pressure from a retail perspective, we will need to see if that trend continues into the next few months."
Passenger car sales ended May on 25,714 units, 36,2% ahead of May last year and 9.1% up on last month. The Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) sector shared the spoils, 32,6% ahead of May 2009 and 8,9% higher than last month. LCV sales totalled 11,501 units in May.
Medium and Heavy Commercial Vehicles sales returned to better form, 40,8% and 29,7% better than May 2009 respectively. This has limited year to date losses in these segments to 9,2% and 3,7% respectively. Extra Heavy Commercials and Busses remained buoyant, as they have for the duration of the year.
