No doubt April was a very short month because of the many public holidays, and as many insiders say, that costs South Africa a whole R1 billion in revenue each day off! That's an extraordinary figure, and one of the places which get affected the most is the car selling business. That's evident in the more than 10% fall in vehicle sales compared to the same time last year. And while the decrease is quite significant, some new entrants have made it to the top fifteen list. These are the Ford EcoSport and Renault Clio. This are the top selling cars and bakkies in South Africa for the month of April.

Best Selling Cars in April

  • Volkswagen Polo Vivo + Polo - 4423

  • Toyota Etios - 1296

  • Toyota Corolla/Auris - 1193

  • Ford Figo - 1050

  • BMW 3 Series - 742

  • Toyota Fortuner - 684

  • Volkswagen Golf 7 - 655

  • Mercedes-Benz C-Class - 365

  • Ford EcoSport - 559

  • Ford Fiesta – 549

  • Renault Clio IV – 549

  • Audi A4 - 455

  • Chevrolet Spark - 442

  • Toyota RAV4 - 422

  • Renault Duster - 382

The Polo brand continues to drive VW's bank balance forward, and although these are distinctly different cars according to the manufacturer, consumers still view them as the same car, probably the likes of a double cab and a single cab Amarok, if you get the idea. Nonetheless, both the Vivo and the Polo simply dominate hatchback market. Overall, only the Toyota Hilux had better sales figures.

A distant second in the passenger car market was the Toyota Etios, one of three Toyotas in the top ten. The Etios is obviously Toyota's answer to Volkswagen's Polo, and has gained significantly over the years. However, on a month to month comparison, sales of the Etios in April where down by a whopping 87.4%! That's 8 times the average fall for the industry from March to April 2014.

The Corolla and its hatchback version, the Auris also showed downward pressure with a mere 1193 units in April from 1437 in March.

Ford, which appears the most in the top 10 has done very well in both the passenger car and LCV arena, where it's Figo and Ranger are its main sellers. The Figo's 1050 units where 153 less than in March.

Rounding off the top 5 was the BMW 3 Series, which has been in an endless fight with Mercedes-Benz and its C-Class. Undoubtedly, the C-Class in its various derivatives is a superior motor vehicle, but BMW has something about it that just makes a Merc a second-class competitor, well at least on the sales side. BMW 3 Series in April did, however, fall a whopping 41.2% from 1048 the previous month.

Best Selling Bakkies in April

  • Toyota Hilux – 2457

  • Ford Ranger – 1804

  • Chevrolet Utility – 1367

  • Isuzu KB – 1325

  • Nissan NP200 – 1223

We tracked the full-year sales numbers for 2013 and detailed them on this article http://www.usedcarsforsale.co.za/news/70/we-compare-bakkies-in-south-africa-from-2013-sales. Many of those have entered the market and qualify as used bakkies now. Keeping up with the trend, April's figures show a significant drop from March. This year's number followed the same trend as in 2013, where a total 14458 bakkies where sold, compared to just 12801 this past April.

For the past four months, the Toyota Hilux has been the best selling motor vehicle in South Africa. That's an incredible feat for a car that's quite pricey. 2457 units of the Toyota Hilux where sold in April 2014. The number has accumulated to 12063 in the first four months of April. Assuming a pickup in the next few months of the same 10% the industry lost in March, the Hilux should sell more or less 40000, which is about 2500 more than in 2014.

Ford's Ranger may be a better bakkie according to some, but it's still less favoured than the Hilux, and comes in at number 2 with 1804 sales.

The last three of this list consists of the Chevy Ute, Isuzu KB, and Nissan NP200.

In the month of April, Associated Motor Holdings and Amalgamated Automobile Distributors, who are the importers of Hyundai and Kia cars in South Africa overtook the Ford Motor Company as the third biggest seller of cars. That is by far the most impressive news about these numbers in an otherwise dismal month. We explored Hyundai's rise in South Africa a while ago.

Overall, Toyota and VW remained the top sellers with 8828 and 8075 units respectively. Followed by Hyundai/Kia with 5337 motor vehicles, and a close fourth was Ford (5127). Rounding up the top 5 is General Motors, at 4812.

Here is a full list of last month's motor vehicle sales on this link. More detailed numbers can be found on the NAAMSA website http://www.naamsa.co.za.

Author: Pierre Theron