Toyota celebrates 38 years of market leadership in SA
Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM) concluded 2017 as market leaders, recording leading figures for both passenger and Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) in December last year. Toyota is also the only manufacturer in recent years to have topped both Passenger and LCV charts in the same month.
The greatest news, however, is that “Team Hilux” has made history once again, achieving South African sales leadership for the 45th time in the past 48 years by amassing 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.
From the manufacturers’ point of view, team Toyota (supported by Lexus and Hino brands) sold no less than 9 958 vehicles in the challenging month of 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 post an aggregate of 40 631 units in December, a decline of 1 013 vehicles compared to the same month in 2016 (41 644).
However, there is no cause for concern over the December figures as sales for 2017 grew by 1.8% compared to 2016. In total, 557 586 new vehicles were sold in South Africa during 2017 – compared to a cumulative 547 547 units the previous year. What’s also telling is that Toyota has once again posted double-digit market share percentages for LCV (34%), MCV (22.8%) – thanks to the remarkable efforts by the Hino Truck Division – and passenger (18.7%) categories. The total market share for Toyota in 2017 rose to 22.9%, up from 21.4% in 2016.
The month of December also saw other consistent segment leaders such as Fortuner (1 108), Quantum (1 136) and RAV4 (791) holding on to their class dominance till the end. Toyota’s luxury SUVs Land Cruiser 200 and Prado sold 120 and 141 units, respectively. Not to be outshined, the Hino 300 Series closed the year off on another high note with a 27.3% market share of MCVs in December.
According to TSAM’s Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Calvyn Hamman: “It feels like we are in the twilight zone: celebrating a remarkable sales performance by Toyota in 2017 while faced with new targets for 2018. However, we cannot let last year’s achievements blind us to the vision and targets we set ourselves for this year.
“In true Toyota fashion, we plan to raise the bar even higher this year – not only in terms of sales targets but also in the quality of service we deliver to our customers. We thank every Toyota ambassador – including dealers, all employees across the country and loyal customers – for last year’s achievements and wish them another successful year ahead.”
Via: Toyota South Africa