The size of the South African new-vehicle market will be determined by the availability of stock this year, says Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM) sales and marketing senior VP Leon Theron.

“It’s a weird, weird year. The market is quite difficult to call.

“As a brand, we are extremely optimistic about this year. We are working as hard as we can to get as much stock as we can.”

Hino South Africa VP Ernie Trautmann agrees. “It’s a very strange year. Last year we had no customers, but stock, and this year we have no stock, but lots of customers.”

Hino is the truck company within the Toyota group.

Trautmann says Hino is facing no restrictions in terms of supply availability, bar the runout of the old Hino 300 model, but notes that Toyota is being affected by supply restrictions, such as global shortages of steel, resin and computer chips.

Global logistics supply chains are also in disarray, with shipping companies especially troubled as they face delays, port congestion and a shortage of containers.

Trautmann says there seems to be sufficient demand to reach a domestic truck market of around 25 000 units this year.

“When we started this year, Toyota’s number on the table for this year – total market, trucks included – was 410 000. “After the first month, we increased that to 460 000. The way the market is going now, that market is most probably tracking to 480 000, maybe even 500 000 – but we can’t get there.

“It’s the same with the 25 000; we probably can’t get there because of a shortage of supply.”

However, Trautmann describes a local truck market of more than 24 000 units as “still pretty good”.

The 2020 truck market reached 22 753 units.

Trautmann believes the truck market can continue to recover if South Africa keeps a possible third Covid-19 wave under control, and if interest and exchange rates remain stable.

Hino South Africa market and demand planning senior manager Leslie Long says this year’s first-quarter truck market has already shown 9.75% growth, compared with the same period last year.

The bulk of this growth was in the extra-heavy commercial vehicle market (19.8%), as well as the heavy commercial vehicle market (9.9%).

Hino South Africa sold 2 121 units in 2020 and hopes to increase the tally to 2 700 units this year, especially as the new Hino 300 medium-duty truck enters the market.