Bumper year for new vehicle sales as 2025 surges ahead

Stephen Grootes speaks to Paulina Mamogobo, chief economist at the Automotive Business Council (Naamsa) about South Africa's 2025 new vehicle sales.

Listen to the interview in the audio player below.

South Africa’s new vehicle market is on track for one of its strongest years in a decade, with sales for the first ten months of 2025 reaching levels last seen in the mid-2010s.

According to the Automotive Business Council (Naamsa), a total of 493 070 new vehicles were sold between January and October, just 4% shy of the full-year total for 2024 (515 977). This marks the best ten-month performance since 2015, when 517 154 vehicles were sold.

Passenger Vehicle sales have been particularly robust. Year-to-date sales of 347 668 units are only 1% below the full-year total for 2024 and represent the strongest January–October performance since 2014, when the market recorded 369 947 sales.

October alone delivered an impressive 55 973 units, up 16.1% year-on-year and 2.4% higher than September 2025. This continues a streak of eight consecutive months of double-digit growth as lower interest rates spur consumer demand.

Passenger Vehicle sales in October rose 14.9% year-on-year to 39 648 units, while Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) sales jumped 24.1% to 13 376 units compared to October 2024. The month also marked the strongest Passenger Vehicle sales performance since October 2014.

Speaking to Stephen Grootes on The Money Show, Paulina Mamogobo, chief economist at the Automotive Business Council (Naamsa) says with sustained momentum and favourable economic conditions, the industry is poised to close out 2025 as one of the most successful years for new vehicle sales in the past decade.

"The levers that turned in our favour. We've seen inflation easing quite nicely. Which consequently led to the reduction of interest rates. Of course that creates credit availability, and we saw household disposable income pick up quite nicely."

"Of course we've seen the rand strengthening, that has emboldened the ability to import into the country. So even on the new vehicle sales side, we see this boom,"

"18% of total new vehicle sales are actually those that are emanating from China....so that has contributed quite significantly. These vehicles are coming in at a very competitive price point," adds Mamogobo.

Scroll to the top of the article to listen to the full interview.