The start of 2022 saw improvements to vehicle value retention for nearly all car brands in South Africa, with the biggest winners including VW, Toyota, and Land Rover.
According to data provided by Lightstone Auto, brands including Opel, Nissan, Honda, Isuzu, Ford, VW, Toyota, and Peugeot saw big improvements – going from negative to positive value retention rates in 2022.
Lightstone said its “Used Vehicle Retention” is a measure of the retained percentage of a vehicle’s new price recorded when sold as a used vehicle.
Starting point – 2021’s data
In 2021, Jaguar was recorded as having the highest vehicle value retention of all the brands measured in the 2020-2021 period.
Meanwhile, brands like Ford, Honda, Nissan, Isuzu, Opel, Peugeot, Toyota, and VW had been seeing a year-on-year loss in value retention.
This chart below shows the change in vehicle value retention across various brands from 2020 to February 2021.
The latest stats
In comparison, 2022’s stats are seeing a reversal of the trends established in the previous period.
The general trend is that almost all brands experienced better used vehicle value retention this year compared to the previous two years.
Brands like Honda, Mazda, Ford, and Audi experienced higher retention in 2022 – but still tracked negatively for new sales.
The top performers included VW, Toyota, and Land Rover – who all saw big improvements in both sales and value retention.
This can be attributed to, in part, global market influences.
In 2020, the market saw decreased demand for cars worldwide as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic – with most brands seeing reduced sales as a result, said Pieter Wessels, managing director of Lightstone Auto.
These low sales explain why used vehicle retention values were underperforming for most companies – with Jaguar notably being one to buck this trend, said Wessels.
In contrast, 2021 saw a huge revival in demand for new vehicles, as production for companies around the world started to return to pre-pandemic levels.
South Africa was no exception, and many vehicle brands saw a resurgence in sales in 2021.
Used-cars, therefore, saw lower interest as the automotive industry experienced an unanticipated rebound in demand for new vehicles.
This helps to explain the lower value retention for used vehicles in 2021.
This plot chart below shows the change in used vehicle value retention from 2021 to 2022.
Current state of the market
Lightstone Auto stated that light commercial vehicles saw a 7.84% leap in value retention in February 2022 compared to the previous period.
It’s a similar story with passenger vehicles, which saw a 6.53% increase over the previous year.
This is likely due to global car production being hampered by parts shortages.
Most notable are the shortages of semiconductors and resources like nickel, which are key to many new vehicles – both petrol and electric.
More recently, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has seen disruptions to global supply lines – leading to a further loss in production for many manufacturers.
These disruptions to vehicle production have slowed down new car sales, which is a big part of why there has been a renewed interest in used vehicles.
If these trends continue, it’s likely that used cars will continue to see an increase in value in the coming months, said Wessels.
Keyword: VW and Toyota see big improvements in used vehicle value retention