Strong commercial vehicle sales have softened the blow to the total new vehicle market for the first half of 2007.

Sales (including the non-reporters to NAAMSA) only dropped very slightly – from 342 579 in the first six months of 2006 to 340 489 for the same period this year.

Passenger car sales dropped 6,8 per cent, while light commercial vehicles were up 12,4 per cent, medium trucks up 8,4 per cent, heavies up 14,5 per cent and extra heavies astounded with a rise of 26,8 per cent.

Toyota continued to set the pace in terms of overall vehicle sales with 74 145 units sold for a 21,8-per cent share of the market. The company was also the market leader in the LCV, medium and heavy truck segments of the market, but trailed Volkswagen by 5 824 units in the passenger car category. Toyota set a new South African monthly sales record in April when it sold 14 135 vehicles locally and exported a further 4 048 for a total of 18 183 units delivered in the month.

However, despite these strong sales performances Toyota SA has suffered financially with a 40 per cent drop in pre-tax profit to R435 million for the fiscal year to the end of March.

This was revealed in the annual report of Wesco, which still has a 25 per cent share in Toyota SA. Toyota SA said the main reason for the drop in profit was the huge investments being made at its Prospecton facility to increase production capacity to 220 000 vehicles a year by 2008, from a capacity of between 60 000 and 80 000 units annually - only five years ago.

Wesco’s share of profit from Toyota SA amounted to R109 million. Elisabeth Bradley, chairman of Wesco and daughter of the founder of Toyota SA, Albert Wessels, said that Wesco was almost entirely dependent on income from its investment in Toyota SA.

Unfortunately, none of the other local manufacturers reveal full details of their financial performances anymore, as they are all wholly-owned subsidiaries of international companies.

Mrs Bradley revealed that Wesco had made a profit of R163 million from the sale of its shareholding in automotive components manufacturer Metair.

In contrast to the performance of Toyota SA, its source company, Toyota Motor Corporation, posted record profits of R19,41 trillion for its 2006/7 financial year. Operating income increased to R131 billion, with net income up 19,8 per cent to R96,5 billion. All these figures were record highs.

Toyota South Africa was followed in the overall sales rankings for the first half of 2007 by Volkswagen, General Motors SA, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Nissan and BMW, with all these companies occupying the same positions they held a year ago. However, the big mover in this group was GMSA, which increased its lead over Ford from only 211 units at the end of June 2006 to a far more dominant 1 903 units, a year later.

There were some interesting changes in the last three positions in the Top 10, with Honda moving from 11th to eighth, Tata slipping from eighth to ninth and Renault dropping from ninth to 10th.

Interestingly, the non-reporters in the Associated Motor Holdings’ stable seemed to stall after making impressive progress for month after month in the past. AMH’s total sales for the first six months of 2007 were 32 623 units, which was only 299 units more than it had sold in the corresponding six months in 2006.

There has been quite a bit of movement in the passenger car market, besides Toyota losing out badly to Volkswagen with the gap between these two adversaries growing from only 82 units at the end of June 2006 to the previously mentioned 5 824 units. Ford and DaimlerChrysler retained their third and fourth spots respectively, but the gap between them has shrunk considerably. GMSA has now displaced BMW for fifth position, Honda has jumped from ninth to seventh, Nissan holds on to eighth, Renault slipped from seventh to ninth and Peugeot overtook Tata for 10th spot.

Volkswagen’s Polo saloon and hatch combination remains the country’s favourite car range with a 9,8 per cent share of the car market. It was followed in the Top 10 list by Toyota Corolla/RunX/Verso, Toyota Yaris, VW CitiGolf and 3 Series BMW all in the same order as a year ago.

VW’s Golf/Jetta duo have jumped from eight to sixth, with the Opel Corsa dropping from sixth to seventh, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class going down from seventh to eighth as the market awaits the arrival of the W204. The Fiesta remained Ford’s bestseller in ninth position, while the Top 10 was rounded out by the Nissan Tiida, which took over that position from the Tata Indica. The Indica’s volumes have almost halved (4 296 to 2 316) in the past year,

In the sports utility vehicle (SUV) market, Toyota’s Fortuner entrenched itself as the leader with 3 950 units sold in the first six months of 2007, many of them probably at the expense of the Prado, which has seen its sales figure more than halve to 601.

Interestingly, the runner-up in the SUV segment is a “soft-roader”, in the form of the new Honda CR-V, which recently benefited from the addition of a diesel-engined model. The CR-V sold 1 357 units to the 958 of its main direct rival, the Toyota RAV4.

Third in the SUV best-seller list was the Land Rover Discovery 3 (1 214), followed by the Nissan X-Trail (1 171), new Mercedes-Benz M-Class (1 071) and the new BMW X5s (1 004), with all the other contenders having total sales below the 1 000 mark.

Toyota, with Hilux production greatly increased, has regained leadership in the LCV market from GMSA, with a 6,4 per cent increase in market share to a 29 per cent. Ford, and DaimlerChrysler retained fourth and fifth positions, while Volkswagen moved up from eighth to sixth at the expense of Tata (down to seventh) and Fiat SA (down to eighth). The Chinese Chana brand has surprised many pundits with a move into the top 10, placing ninth and displacing Mahindra, while Renault drops out of the Top 10.

The Hilux regained top spot among individual LCV model ranges from the Opel Corsa Utility, with the Ford Bantam and Isuzu KB swapping places in third and fourth positions and underlining the importance of the half-ton bakkie market, where Toyota does not have a competitor. The Nissan Hardbody remained in fifth spot, while Toyota’s Siyaya minibus surprised by moving up from seventh to sixth, even though it will cease production at the end of the year.

Ford’s Ranger, which has just been replaced by an all-new model, slipped from sixth to seventh, where it was placed ahead of the Nissan 1400 which was ninth a year ago, further underlining the popularity of this half-tonner - even though it is also coming towards the end of its lifespan in South Africa.

The Toyota Quantum panel van and minibus has come into ninth position from the “wilderness” a year ago, obviously benefiting from improved availability and demand from taxi operators as a modern alternative to the Hi-Ace Siyaya. DCSA’s Colt range, which is in a renewal process, has slumped from eighth to tenth.

The medium commercial vehicle category needs to be analysed in two categories - freight carriers and panelvans/minibuses, because combining all these variants tends to cloud the true picture.

The Toyota Dyna is the leader in terms of freight carriers, while DaimlerChrysler not only has vans, buses and freight carriers in its Sprinter line-up, but also includes the Mitsubishi Fuso under the DCSA umbrella.

Year-to-date Dyna is still the best selling model range by a short head from Mercedes-Benz, but what is interesting is that the Sprinter sales have jumped from 752 to 1 246 in the six months under review, while Dyna sales, which are all freight carriers or custom vans, only grew by 88 units in this period.

The big loser in the MCV market has been Tata, which has gone down from second to third, but in the process lost 3,5 per cent in market share. (VW lost a similar amount, but that was due to a changeover to the new Sprinter-based Crafter in the period). Nissan’s Cabstar dropped from third to fourth, with Isuzu and Iveco remained static in fifth and sixth. Fuso jumped from tenth to seventh, displacing Ford (the F250 pick-up), GAZ minibus taxi and Nissan's panelvans and minibuses.

Toyota Trucks’ Hino 500 Series continued to rule the roost in the heavy truck segment (8 501kg – 16 500kg) and it opened a sizeable gap over runner-up Nissan Diesel’s UD range - the gap between these two ranges increased from 27 to 149 during the year. There were no changes in the manufacturer rankings in this segment, with Nissan being followed by Isuzu, Tata, Mercedes-Benz and Fuso.

However, the main action arena in the truck market was at the top end – the extra-heavies (over 16 500kg). Mercedes-Benz not only retained its traditional leadership position, but increased the gap over its arch-rival, MAN from 207 to 368 units. Nissan Diesel moved up to third at the expense of International, with Volvo jumping up from eighth to fifth, displacing Freightliner, Tata and Scania. Super Group’s Chinese Powerstar trucks came from nowhere to end in ninth, where the marque is positioned above Hino.

The bus market (over 8 501 kg) shrunk slightly, decreasing to 468 units sold in the first half of 2007 compared with 552 in the same period of 2006. There are only three major players in this market - MAN holds top spot, ahead of Scania and Mercedes-Benz.

Looking ahead we see that manufacturers and industry commentators continue to be fairly bullish about the rest of the year, despite all the glitches in the first half.

It has been pointed out that current monthly car sales were 80 per cent higher than in the period 2000-2003 before the current boom got under way. The car market for 2007 is still seen as being in the region of 440 000 to 450 000. Then we have the ongoing demand for commercial vehicles, which will get a further boost from the planned R22-billion upgrading of the road system in Gauteng.