In an ever-competitive local automotive landscape, Toyota, with its Durban manufacturing hub in mind, warned against the dangers of accepting subsidised Chinese imports openly.
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Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM) once again used its annual State of the Motor Industry (SOMI) event as a platform to provide insights into the continually evolving automotive landscape. The event featured key presentations from TSAM’s President and CEO, Andrew Kirby, and Senior Vice President for Sales and Marketing, Leon Theron, alongside special guest Rory Reid from the UK.
In his keynote address titled “The Year That Was”, Kirby delved into the challenges facing the South African motor industry, emphasizing the need to push annual vehicle sales beyond the 600 000-unit threshold. As it stands, the South African market has not yet increased to sales figures from pre-COVID-19 and has been hovering under the 550 000 mark for some time. Achieving this, he argued, would create the scale required to attract further foreign direct investment.
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While the South African government’s recent policy to incentivise battery electric vehicle (BEV) production is a step forward, Kirby cautioned that more substantial support is needed to safeguard the country’s automotive production sector. The ongoing trend of de-industrialisation and a decline in local content—now below 40% for domestically manufactured vehicles—only adds to these concerns.
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Kirby remained cautiously optimistic in his sales forecast of 535 000 units for 2025—a 3.7% increase on 2024 figures—though he humorously suggested that he might need to “put a more positive spin on the numbers.” However, he reiterated that any meaningful growth would depend on continued interest rate cuts and fuel price stabilisation.
While the automotive landscape globally and locally is ever-evolving, one of the key concerns mentioned by Kirby that was further extrapolated was the general acceptance of subsided Chinese imports to South Africa. Kirby added that there is an increase in sourcing vehicles from India and China and there has been a significant shift in global production, with China’s market share growing from 29% in 2018 to 32% in 2023. In a private discussion with Kirby, the Toyota head honcho encouraged the competition, considering the end consumer benefits but warned that it could have a significant toll on South Africa’s employment sector and GDP.
During the presentation, other key stats show that German manufacturing has slipped from the top five globally while locally produced vehicle sales have also declined, from 46% in 2018 to 43% in 2023. At the same time, imports from India and China have surged from 18% to 37% in the same period. Not to be confused with adding more stringent import tariffs on the subsidised products entering our market from abroad, Kirby added some legislation should be considered to ensure a fair market for all competing.
