South Africans have not given up on owning a vehicle, but more of them are buying used, and fewer say they plan to buy at all, according to TransUnion’s Q2 2026 Mobility Insights Report. The credit bureau found that the ratio of used to new vehicle registrations rose from 2.3 in the first quarter of 2026 to 2.7 in the second, even as new passenger vehicle sales grew 15.8% year on year, the strongest annual growth in three quarters, according to George Herald.
Fewer buyers, more cautious ones
The share of consumers planning to buy a vehicle within three months fell from 22% in the first quarter to 19% in the second. The drop was steepest among lower and middle-income households. Higher-income households moved the other way, with purchase intent rising from 24% to 27%, according to IT-Online.
Ayesha Hatea, director of research and consulting at TransUnion Africa, said “Mobility remains essential,” and that consumers are weighing affordability, financing costs, fuel efficiency and long-term ownership costs more carefully before they commit. Bizcommunity linked the weaker intent among lower and middle-income buyers to fuel and living costs.
Chinese brands and hybrids
Chinese vehicle brands recorded 72% year-on-year sales growth in the second quarter and now account for 22.4% of passenger and light commercial vehicle sales in South Africa. TransUnion ties that to buyers looking for affordability combined with technology and value.
On electrification, 45% of consumers said they now consider a hybrid when shopping, making hybrids the preferred electrified option ahead of fully electric cars. The report gives lower expected running costs and concern about charging infrastructure as the reasons. It also warns that as more of the purchase process moves online, fraud exposure spreads beyond finance applications to identity fraud, synthetic identities and document manipulation across the vehicle ecosystem.
How buyers are paying
The clearest sign of stretched affordability is in loan terms. In TransUnion’s Q4 2025 industry insights report, 56.4% of borrowers financing a vehicle chose a term of 72 months or longer, up from 51.9% a year earlier. It was the first quarter this decade in which more than half of borrowers chose the longest terms on offer, according to TransUnion South Africa.
That report, dated 24 March 2026, also showed vehicle finance originations up 9.9% year on year and account-level delinquencies down 59 basis points to 6.8%. Generation Z and millennial borrowers made up 66% of all vehicle finance originations, and originations to below-prime borrowers grew 20.2%. TransUnion linked the improvement partly to the Reserve Bank’s 25 basis point repo rate cut in November 2025. In that quarter the used-to-new finance ratio fell to 0.96 from 1.56 a year earlier, which Hatea said pointed to stronger momentum in new-vehicle financing.
The Q2 2026 figures are more subdued. According to FAnews, outstanding vehicle finance balances rose 8.0% year on year and average new loan values rose 5.5%, while origination volumes grew only 1.1%. Serious account-level delinquencies fell by 115 basis points.
The picture a year earlier
TransUnion’s report for the second quarter of 2025, published on 17 September 2025, showed a different mix. Passenger car sales grew 22.5% year on year, new registrations rose 20% and used registrations fell 1.4%, which pushed the used-to-new ratio to 3.2 from 2.5 in the first quarter of 2025. Chinese manufacturers held nearly 15% of the market that quarter, against 3.1% in 2022.
Set against that, the 2.7 ratio in the second quarter of 2026 is lower than a year earlier, and the 22.4% Chinese share is higher. TransUnion Africa chief executive Lee Naik said in 2025 that the drivers of the recovery gave “short-term support” to the vehicle market and that momentum was “likely to taper in 2026 without further reforms.” The bureau listed interest rate cuts, record-low new-vehicle inflation, manufacturer incentives and cash released by the two-pot pension reform in September 2024 as the supports at the time.
Two measures, two periods
The used-to-new figures in this piece measure different things. The 2.3 and 2.7 ratios compare registrations of used and new vehicles in the first and second quarters of 2026, while the 0.96 ratio compares finance originations for used and new vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2025. They should not be read against each other.
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