vehicle sales drop blamed on eNatis
4 May 2007

Sales of 43 588 units represented a drop of 4.4 percent on the 45 590 new vehicles sold in April last year.

Naamsa attributed the fall in sales to "the proliferation of public holidays and extended school holidays and particularly the eNatis new vehicle registration problems".

Car sales were the hardest hit with a 15.9 percent drop over the same period in 2006 when 30 827 new cars were sold. In comparison 25 912 new cars were sold in April 2007.  Volkswagen and Toyota dominated the sector with 6109 and 6070 passenger cars respectively.

While consumers were tightening their belt, commercial sales again showed an improvement with sales of new light commercial vehicles, bakkies and minibuses at 14 969 units during April 2007, showing an improvement of 2577 units or 20.8 percent compared to the 12 392 light commercial vehicles sold in April 2006.

Toyota was the leader in this sector selling 4946 vehicles. Truck sales also showed an improvement with 1118 medium-sized trucks being sold in April 2007 and 1589 heavy trucks and buses being sold in the same month.

This was a 9.8 percent and 17.4 percent increase respectively.

Aggregate new vehicle export sales at 13 289 units had showed a decline of 1542 vehicles or 10.4 percent from the 14 831 vehicles exported in April 2006.

www.business.iafrica.com, Sapa