Car makers start the year with reason to smile
New-vehicle sales have broken a long run of declines, and even the disappointing news on exports is nothing to worry about
After three years of decline, motor companies finally had cause to smile on Wednesday, as new-vehicle sales figures showed an upturn for January. It was the first time in 14 months that sales grew from a year earlier. Compared with January 2016, the 50,333 units sold in January 2017 were up 3.7%, from 48,514. Car sales rose 4.7%, from 35,133 to 36,794. There was disappointing news on the export front, however, with shipments down 10.3% from a year earlier, from 13,001 to 11,659. But nothing should be read into this: the drop was attributable to refurbishment work at BMW SA’s Rosslyn assembly plant, near Pretoria. The plant, which currently builds 3-Series sedans, mainly for export, will switch to production of the X3 sports utility vehicle from 2019, and used the December-January holiday period to undertake preliminary transition work. The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa) described January’s local sales improvement as “positive”, though it was too earl...
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