How Chinese car brands won over South African buyers

How fast did Chinese car brands grow in South Africa?

Their share of naamsa-reported sales more than quadrupled between early 2020 and early 2025, and it kept climbing after that.

Period	What’s counted	Vehicles sold	Share	Source
Q1 2020	Cars and light commercials, naamsa-reporting brands only	3 247	2.78%	naamsa, via Pretoria News
Q1 2023	Cars and light commercials, naamsa-reporting brands only	9 559	6.98%	naamsa, via Pretoria News
Q1 2025	Cars and light commercials, naamsa-reporting brands only	17 003	11.81%	naamsa, via Pretoria News
2026	Market share in the cars.co.za industry report (basis and period not stated)	Not published	About 22%	cars.co.za industry report, via EWN

Naamsa figures leave out brands that don’t report to it (GAC, MG and LDV in the 2025 count, Geely, Dongfeng and iCaur in 2026), so the naamsa rows understate the total. The 2026 row is a different measure, so the jump from 11.81% to 22% shows the direction more reliably than the exact size.

In September 2026, Chery, GWM and Jetour were the seventh, eighth and ninth best-selling brands among brands that report to naamsa. Haval alone went from 872 sales in 2019 to about 19 904 in 2024, according to BusinessTech. Chery’s Tiggo 4 Pro, counted with its Cross variant, was the second best-selling car in the first half of 2026.

Consideration moved too. Absa saw the Chinese share of SUV finance applications rise from 19% to 40% since 2023, Business Day reports. A finance application is a strong sign someone has moved from browsing to buying.

Why did South African buyers switch?

Price came first: it was the most important consideration in the cars.co.za survey of car shoppers, cited by 70.8%, ahead of fuel efficiency at 52.5%, Business Day reported.

The same report, via TopAuto, credits Chinese brands’ “competitive pricing, strong specifications and attractive warranty offerings”. Alan Quinn of cars.co.za told Business Day that “affordability is shaping behaviour more than ever”. BMW has said South Africans are buying down or replacing their cars later than usual, BusinessTech reported.

Origin stopped being the objection. Most respondents in the cars.co.za survey said the country where a vehicle is made makes no difference to their decision, according to Business Day.

Warranties mattered too. Omoda and Jaecoo offer a 10-year or 1 million km engine warranty, while TopAuto lists a 2-year warranty for the BMW X3 and the Mercedes GLC. A long warranty answers a cautious buyer’s first question about an unfamiliar brand.

The shift reaches younger buyers. Standard Bank’s 2026 Youth Barometer shows “the growing popularity of Chinese brands also among the under-35s”, EWN reported, though Toyota and VW still lead with that group.

A long warranty is a brand promise you can put a number on.

What trust questions remain?

Longevity, parts supply and resale values are still unproven for many of the newer brands.

Chinese brands have tried South Africa before. A first wave arrived from the 2000s (BusinessTech dates Chery’s entry to 2008), and in 2017 cars.co.za wrote that several early entrants, including CMC, Lifan and Hafei, “have come and gone”. Product quality and dealer support were serious issues, and poorly supported brands left buyers believing “buying Chinese was akin to flushing money down the loo”.

The current wave has expanding dealer networks and broader model ranges, says cars.co.za, but doubts remain. Motoring expert Ernest Page told EWN that price is the biggest drawcard, then added: “What we don’t know is the longevity of the brand and of the brand’s technology.” He named parts as a risk too, asking whether a newer brand has “a fender, a light, a windscreen” after a minor collision. Omoda & Jaecoo told TopAuto it has invested over R140 million in spare parts.

Resale values are still being tested. WesBank has warned that immature resale histories can undermine residual values, while a TimesLIVE analysis of advertised prices found the poor-resale reputation was “not necessarily borne out”.

So the contest has moved. The Chinese brands have awareness and consideration. What they haven’t proven is loyalty: whether a buyer chooses the same brand again in five years and recommends it to a friend. Recommendation already sells cars. Describing how people decide, Quinn gave the example of a friend talking about a car over a braai, EWN reported.

What should rival car brands do now?

Find out where you are losing buyers before the sale, then compete on the questions the newer brands haven’t answered yet.

1. Find out who is taking your shortlist. Sales data shows who won the deal, but not who you lost consideration to. The cars.co.za report found German luxury brands losing consideration among status-conscious buyers while Ford and Toyota gained, Business Day reported. Check which group your brand is in.
2. Answer the warranty with evidence of your own. A buyer comparing a 10-year engine warranty with a 2-year one will see the gap. If you can’t match it, show the evidence the newer entrants are still collecting: years of local parts supply and resale history.
3. Price against used cars as well as new ones. The cars.co.za report says new Chinese cars have become viable alternatives to used cars from established brands, via TopAuto. Your competition includes your own three-year-old models on a dealer forecourt.
4. Spend where the shortlist is made. Social media is the leading source of vehicle discovery, but test drives and written reviews carry more weight once shoppers narrow their options, according to Business Day. Give test drives and reviews a budget of their own.
5. Watch the new names monthly. New Chinese brands keep arriving, and some don’t report to naamsa, so they are missing from its sales tables. Add the ones your buyers mention to your competitor set and measure them every month.

What should every car brand track?

Track the steps before the sale: which brands buyers know, consider and prefer, and the words they use for each, every month.

Start with unprompted awareness: which brands car buyers name without help, and how fast the new names are climbing. Then consideration: which Chinese brands buyers would consider, and whether consideration of your brand is holding among buyers who already know it.

Then preference, because a buyer who recognises your brand may still choose someone else (where your funnel leaks covers that gap). Last, imagery: the words buyers use for each brand, from “value” to “unknown”. A rival moving from “unknown” to “value” is the early stage of the shift in the table above.

Where does brand tracking fit, and where doesn’t it?

Brand tracking measures what buyers think of your brand and its rivals; sales and finance data tell you what they bought.

Wink, the brand tracking platform, surveys real category buyers every month and compares your brand with up to five competitors, in South Africa, the US, the UK and Australia. Each tracker covers one category in one country, starting with a 600-respondent baseline and adding 200 new respondents a month. Every number comes with its margin of error. Meet Wink explains how it works.

A tracker won’t count units or explain why one dealership lost a deal; naamsa and your own sales team own those numbers. Trends take time: the first three-month rolling headline lands in month four. And with up to five competitors per tracker, a car brand has to choose which new entrants to watch, so pick the ones already appearing on your buyers’ shortlists.

If Chinese brands are on those shortlists, book a demo to see where you stand before it shows up in your sales.