{{Annual vehicle sales in Africa will rise nearly 20 per cent in the next two years to hit the 2 million mark as the continent’s burgeoning middle class trades up from motorbikes and jalopies to new cars, the regional head of General Motors (GM.N) said.}}<\/p>\n
The US car giant sold 180,000 vehicles on the continent last year, giving it a 10 per cent market share and putting it narrowly behind rival Toyota (7203.T), which recorded African sales of 237,000.<\/p>\n
However, of GM’s total sales, 100,000 went to North Africa and 70,000 to South Africa, leaving only 10,000 to the impoverished but fast-growing countries in between.<\/p>\n
“That’s where we see the huge opportunity for growth,” GM Africa managing director Mario Spangenberg told the Reuters Africa Investment Summit in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n
Although Africa offers enticing growth, sales volumes remain a drop in the ocean for GM, which sold 6 million vehicles last year outside its traditional US market.<\/p>\n
As well as benefiting from the expanding overall market in one of the world’s fastest-growing regions, Spangenberg hopes to increase GM’s market share with models such as the Isuzu pick-up, which has proved resilient to Africa’s rugged conditions.<\/p>\n
“We want to defend our 10 percent and maybe grow it a little bit,” he said.<\/p>\n
Of Africa’s 40-odd sub-Saharan frontier markets, Nigeria – the continent’s most populous nation and its biggest oil producer – is the most attractive prospect, Spangenberg said.<\/p>\n
“The next big market growth will be in Nigeria, where we have no presence. It will take a while,” he said. “We need to do a better job there.”<\/p>\n
He also dismissed concerns that the arrival of Indian manufacturers such as Tata Motors (TAMO.NS), with its experience of making and selling cars in relatively low-income markets, threatened GM’s African expansion plans.<\/p>\n
“The international competition is going to get tougher no matter where you are,” he said.<\/p>\n
NMG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Annual vehicle sales in Africa will rise nearly 20 per cent in the next two years to hit the 2 million mark as the continent’s burgeoning middle class trades up from motorbikes and jalopies to new cars, the regional head of General Motors (GM.N) said.}} The US car giant sold 180,000 vehicles on the continent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-7086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7086"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=7086"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=7086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}