TOYOTA South Africa Motors ended last year as the market leaders.
They recorded leading figures for both passenger and light commercial vehicles in December last year. Toyota is also the only manufacturer in recent years to have topped both passenger and light commercial charts in the same month.
Toyota’s biggest news is that Team Hilux has made history once again – they achieved South African sales leadership for the 45th time in the past 48 years with a retail total of 36 422 units in 2017, 3 636 ahead of its nearest competitor. By recording 3 382 sales for the month of December, the iconic Hilux comfortably edged out its closest rival by 701 units.
Team Toyota, supported by Lexus and Hino brands, sold no less than 9 958 vehicles in December – 4 527 units ahead of the nearest manufacturer.
This is quite a significant feat for Toyota considering that the local motoring industry managed to sell 40 631 units in December, a drop of 1 013 vehicles compared to December 2016 (41 644 sales).
last year’s December figures grew by 1,8% compared to 2016. In total, 557 586 new vehicles were sold in South Africa last year – compared to a combined year-on-year total of 547 547 units over the previous year.
What’s also telling is that Toyota has once again posted double-digit market share percentages for LCV at 34%, manufacturing commercial vehicles at 22,8% – thanks to the Hino truck division – and passenger categories at 18,7%.
The total market share for Toyota rose from 21,4% in 2016 to 22,9% in 2017.
Toyota South Africa’s senior vice-president of sales and marketing, Calvyn Hamman, said: “We are celebrating a remarkable sales performance by Toyota.”
