The SUV segment of the South African new car market continues to experience exceptional growth as motorists are keen to take advantage of SUV attributes such as increased ground clearance, improved ride quality and a command driving position.
For example, the C-SUV segment of the South African passenger car market is the fastest growing segment and has experienced growth of 12.7% this year to date. This means that one in every 10 cars sold is from the C-SUV segment.
Naamsa monthly sales data unfortunately does no categorise SUVs into different sub categories but does report on SUVs as a whole. A closer look at this data from April reveals that the top selling SUVs across all the SUV segments were the Toyota Fortuner, Chery Tiggo 7 Pro, Haval H6, BMW X3 and Suzuki Grand Vitara.
The crossover segment, which caters for smaller vehicles with slightly increased ground clearance, was dominated by the Toyota Corolla Cross, Chery Tiggo 4 Pro, Nissan Magnite, Haval Jolion and Volkswagen T-Cross.
SUVs are making inroads in the new energy segments too with the top five sellers in the traditional hybrid segment all SUVs where the Toyota Corolla Cross is outselling the Haval H6, Toyota RAV4, Haval Jolion and Suzuki Grand Vitara in this growing segment.
Four out of the top five vehicles sold in the plug-in hybrid category were also SUVs, with the BMW X1 leading this segment, followed by the Volvo XC60, Volvo XC90 as well as the BMW X5 in fifth place.
While not individually categorised a closer look at the sales data of the top five selling manufacturers on the passenger car sales charts confirms that SUVs are becoming the vehicle of choice.
Toyota’s top five best sellers include three SUVs of various sizes in the form of the Corolla Cross, Fortuner and Urban Cruiser. Suzuki’s Grand Vitara, S-Presso and Jimny remain top sellers for that growing brand. While the bulk of Volkswagens sales are still attributed to the Polo and Polo Vivo, the T-Cross and Tiguan do feature in their top five.
Chery has been one of the fastest movers on the local sales charts recently and currently occupies fourth place on the local passenger car sales charts with a strong performance by a line-up that is exclusively made up of SUVs including the Tiggo 4 Pro, Tiggo 7 Pro, Omoda C5, Tiggo 8 Pro and Jaecoo J7.
Hyundai currently occupies fifth spot on the local sales charts and three of their top five models are SUVs too, namely the Venue, Creta and Grand Creta.
As technology has improved SUVs are able to offer a wide variety of benefits with none of the drawbacks. They are now frugal, safe and dynamically sound which makes this body type a no brainer.
Credit: Reuben van Niekerk
