By Staff Reporter

It is trite that the South African car market in decline. In fact, the new car sales of January were down over 8% compared to the same period in 2019. Toyota seems to have bucked the trend with a strong showing in the light commercial vehicle space with a total of 3,927 sales thus taking over 40,1% of the market for the month.

The evergreen Hilux

The Hilux kicked off the year as the best-selling bakkie with a total of 2,681 models, whilst the Land Cruiser pick-up posted a formidable total of 230 units. Both Hi-ace and Quantum had a decent showing amassing 777 and 137 units, respectively.

Peak into passenger space

In the passenger segment, popular the Corolla Quest and Etios had a good run posting 998 and 622 sales apiece. Adding to the party were the Yaris, Corolla Hatchback and Aygo with 439, 99 and 72 sales, respectively.

Trucking the economy

On the truck front, the Hino 300 Series played a pivotal role in Toyota’s 25.2% market share of Medium Commercial Vehicles, while the Hino 500 Series found the going tough in the Heavy Commercial Vehicles segment with a total of 36 units.

“The economic pressure remains and consumers have continued to be debt-averse. While Toyota has kicked off the year with a cautious market share of 20.9%, we are thankful to our customers, fleet owners and rental companies for their continued support in these trying economic times. We are also grateful to our Dealer Network, as well as all Toyota staff, for their sterling efforts in making Toyota such a competitive brand,” says Leon Theron, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Toyota South Africa Motors.