INDUSTRY NEWS
Sales of most car companies down in 2017
Mark Smyth reports on who were the winners and losers in the vehicle sales charts last year
Passenger car sales might have ended 2017 in positive territory but it was not a good year for most of the industry. Overall, sales were up 1.90% for the year at 368,068 units but sales of most car companies dropped, in some cases quite significantly. Light commercial vehicle (LCV) sales rose marginally, 2.60%, and because so many people drive a double-cab bakkie as their daily runner, we are grouping passenger car and LCV sales together as we look at 2017’s big winners and losers. It is no surprise that the biggest sellers were Ford, Toyota and Volkswagen. Ford pushed 71,220 vehicles through its various channels in 2017, but its figures were down 3.57% on 2016. After the Kuga fire issue of 2016-17, sales of its once popular crossover dropped significantly. Even with the introduction of an updated model in the second half of the year, sales of the Kuga plummeted from 2,428 in 2016 to 853 in 2017. In December, Ford sold just 66 Kugas. But the big fight for Ford was with Toyota in the...
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