By Khulekani Dumisa

The economy is in a tight spot and vehicle sales are down overall. Notwithstanding this, Volkswagen Group South Africa (VWSA) showed a solid performance in the South African passenger car market from January to September with a market share of 23.2%.

A bleak picture for SA

According to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) recorded domestic sales of 49,191 units in September, a decline of 439 units or 0.9% from the 49,630 vehicles sold in September last year.

Solid performance for VWSA

From January to September 2019, Volkswagen has sold 52 382 units and achieved a market share of 20.2% in the passenger car market, an increase of 0.6% versus 2018 YTD. The Polo Vivo has been leading the charge and the car was even South Africa’s best-selling passenger car in September with 2,540 sales. VWSA also did well by opening the order books early for the new Volkswagen T-Cross. Records showed that with only nine working days of sales, Volkswagen’s new compact SUV, the T-Cross, sold 810 units in September, an average of 90 units sold every day until the end of the month.

Audi resurgence

Premium brand Audi’s market share rose to 17.8% YTD, an increase of 1.2% versus 2018 YTD. From January to September 2019, Audi sold a total of 6 145 units to South African customers.

Moving the economy

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles reported deliveries of 6,131 units in the light commercial vehicles segment from January to September 2019, an 8% growth compared to the same time last year.  Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles’ market share also increased to 4.9%, a 0.4 increase, when compared to the same time last year.

Model offensive

VWSA says key model introductions such as the Audi A1, Audi Q3, Volkswagen T-Cross as well as Amarok Special Editions in the previous quarter, enabled it to record a strong performance in the first nine months of the year with sales of 64,658 vehicles.