Exactly how big are Chery and GWM in SA?

Just how big are Chery and GWM in South Africa? We break down the sales stats for the 1st half of 2024 to determine these Chinese brands’ respective market shares…

While Chinese automotive brands continue to pour into South Africa’s new-vehicle market, there are currently 2 main players – in pure sales volumes, anyway – that hail from the East Asian country. Yes, we’re talking about Chery and GWM. But just how big are these brands in Mzansi?

Well, we sorted through South Africa’s new-vehicle sales figures for the 1st half of 2024 to find out. For the record, GWM SA’s sales total for H1 2024 includes the GWM brand, Haval, Ora and Tank, while the Chery tally comprises only Chery-branded vehicles (we’ve excluded Omoda and Jaecoo registrations since they were supplied to Naamsa only once, in April 2024).

*Chery’s Tiggo 4 Pro was SA’s best-selling vehicle from a Chinese brand in H1 2024.*

At the year’s halfway point, Chery had sold 9 326 units (or 9 731 units, were we to include Omoda and Jaecoo’s reported April sales), a 16.55% increase, year on year. That’s enough for the Wuhu-based firm to place 8th on the list of South Africa’s best-selling automakers, behind Isuzu.

With the total new-vehicle market sitting at 246 052 units in H1 2024, Chery’s effort translates to a 3.79% market share. Since this Chinese firm doesn’t currently play in the light-commercial vehicle space, we can also calculate that its share of the passenger-car market (161 981 units) in the opening half of 2024 stood at 5.76%. Were we to factor in estimated Omoda and Jaecoo registrations, that number would likely cross well past the 6.0% mark.

*GWM will hope that its new Jolion Pro will help to boost local sales in the 2nd half of the year.*

And GWM? Well, the Baoding-based automaker’s local sales interestingly slid 13.96% year on year to 8 688 units in H1 2024, seeing it place 9th overall, a ranking below Chery. Based on these figures, GWM’s year-to-date market share came in at 3.53%.

Using local sales of the P-Series (2 055 units) and Steed 5 (626 units), we can furthermore determine that GWM’s slice of the light-commercial vehicle segment (69 311 units) stood at 3.87% in H1 2024, while its share of the passenger-car space came in at 3.71%.

For the record, in the opening half of the year, South Africa’s best-selling vehicle from a Chinese brand was the Chery Tiggo 4 Pro (6 102 units, up 23.2% year on year), followed by the Haval Jolion (3 558 units, down 25.6% year on year).