Isuzu maintains lead as sale of new cars falls

By Jackson Okoth

The Isuzu brand, sold by General Motors East Africa, has maintained its lead in sales figures at 246 units, followed by Toyota and Mitsubishi at 146 units each and Nissan, a brand of DT Dobie selling 80 units, in September this year.

Figures from the Kenya Motor Industry also shows that Mitsubishi, a model of Simba Colt, remains the most popular model, selling 57 units of the FH truck followed by Mercedes Benz Actros 3,340 selling 54 units, Toyota land cruiser selling 51 units and Isuzu FRR Large Bus selling 36 units.

The September statistics show that GMEA is still the top vehicle seller, commanding a 26.73 per cent of market share. In the same month, DT Dobie — the seller of Nissan, Mercedes and Jeep — relegated Toyota to occupy the second slot with 19 per cent market, while Simba Colt — the seller of Mitsubishi and BMW — came third with 16 per cent.

Commenting on the sales performance, GMEA Managing Director, Rita Kavashe, attributed the firm’s strong performance to a fall in the cost of credit, changes in legislation and low inflation.

“Change in legislation to higher occupancy vehicles has been a big boost in our end, considering that the market has responded to it. Low interest rates have also been a big plus to us, since 80 per cent of our customers purchase vehicles via loans,” Ms Kavashe said.

In the nine-month period, GMEA has sold 2,352 units, while Toyota sold 2,087 units — a 10 per cent drop compared to same period last year. DT Dobie has sold 1,400 vehicles, a 6.5 per cent increase compared to 1,315 units sold last year. Simba Colt recorded a 28 per cent drop from 1,496 vehicles sales to 1,077 in the nine months period of 2012.

In the month of September, industry sales closed at 8,718 units, which is a 5.1 per cent lower than that the 9,230 units sold in a corresponding period last year.