“We missed the 50 000 mark by the narrowest of margins in the last financial year, when we sold 49 576 vehicles. So it was with great joy that we were informed of our sales figure for the most recent financial year,” says Henno Havenga, General Manager of Sales and Marketing at Suzuki Auto South Africa.

The brand started its financial year in April 2023 with the introduction of the all-new Grand Vitara, its flagship and the first hybrid Suzuki model. The Suzuki Eeco panel van landed in the same month.

Other models joined the line-up throughout the year, including the Fronx and XL6 (August) and the Jimny five-door model (November). The larger Jimny made a guest appearance at Suzuki Auto South Africa’s Jimny Gathering, where 787 South African Jimnys set a new Guiness World Record for the most vehicles to switch on their lights at the same time.

Along the way, Suzuki and its dealers set several new monthly sales records. These include selling the 200 000th South African Suzuki in July 2023, breaking through the 5 000-a-month record in January with 5 249 sales and the Suzuki dealer network selling a record 4 488 vehicles to customers in February.

Suzuki is one of a handful of vehicle brands that has grown its sales and market share in a sharply declining market. In March, for instance, the new vehicle market recorded a drop of 11.3% over the same month last year, its eighth month of consecutive declines.

Suzuki Auto South Africa and its counterpart in India shared mutual congratulations and the end of their financial years, following news of the local record and a new cumulative production record for Maruti Suzuki in India.

Suzuki achieved accumulated automobile production of 30 million units in India by the end of March 2024, making it the country in the Suzuki world to reach this milestone the quickest. It took Suzuki in India 40 years and 4 months since the start of production to reach this record, which beats the previous record of 55 years and 2 months set by Suzuki in Japan.