The 20,7% spike in new vehicle sales year-on-year for June 2010 has been described as “heartening” but “nothing out of the ordinary” by Econometrix’s Tony Twine The 20,7% spike in new vehicle sales year-on-year for June 2010 has been described as heartening but nothing out of the ordinary by Econometrix’s Tony Twine.

The surge reported by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (NAAMSA) is beyond industry expectations, which foresaw a slump in the moderate growth experienced in the first five months of 2010 mainly due to World Cup festivities.

NAAMSA, which represents vehicle manufacturers, said this improvement should be viewed in relation to the exceptionally depressed sales prevalent this time last year due to the global financial and economic crisis at the time. Twine echoes this sentiment, but believes that it is positive that the figures did not drop at all. “The important factor is that the festivities around the 2010 World Cup did not knock any of the major group car sales,” Twine said. At the halfway mark in calendar 2010, aggregate industry sales remained 23.9% ahead of the corresponding six months in 2009.