THE battle for market leadership in the domestic new passenger car sales sector remains clearly defined, with Volkswagen SA continuing to rule the roost in the category.

September 2004 record sales figures released yesterday showed that even as the Uitenhage company’s rival, Toyota SA, continued to dominate the market overall, with 10 895 units or 25,3 per cent of the total market – VWSA maintained its leadership of the new passenger car sector with record sales of some 7 014 units or 24,1 per cent of the total market for the category.

This consolidated VW’s year-to-date market share to 20,9 per cent with 50 645 units sold.

During the same period last year VWSA had sold 41 939 new cars, making 2004 year to date figures a 21 per cent improvement on 2003.

The star performers for VW remained the Citi Golf, Polo and new Golf 5.

“Customer uptake on VW’s new Golf has been very strong since launch in August, and over 2 200 have been sold over the last two months,” sales and marketing director Jolyon Nash said.

Nash added that the Golf had also been a success on the export front, with almost 9 000 being produced for export since May this year.

He said the Polo, which like the Golf was also being exported to the Asia Pacific region, had also seen over 9 000 being produced for export so far this year.

Not to be outdone, however, was Port Elizabeth-based General Motors SA, whose sales of the new Isuzu bakkie in September soared to 1 737 units – the second highest sales figure of the range of vehicles for the month, after Toyota SA.

Overall, GM sold 2 669 light commercial vehicles to capture 22 per cent of the market which continued to be ruled by Toyota with 30 per cent market share of the range of vehicles.