South African car buyers are no longer prepared to pay more for less. That is the central finding of the research, which maps how the arrival of challenger brands has fundamentally reshaped how the country chooses and buys its vehicles.
According to Naamsa data referenced in the study, challenger brands’ share of new vehicle sales in South Africa has roughly tripled in four years, rising from around 3% to 11% between 2020 and 2024.
In unit terms, that is a jump from just over 10,000 vehicles a year to more than 52,000. But the numbers only tell part of the story. The deeper shift is in what buyers now consider reasonable to pay for, and what they expect to come as standard.
It is no longer about a definition of value for money; it is now the re-definition of value for money.
The research combined a quantitative panel survey of 1,082 South Africans through Kla’s YourView Consumer Panel, four focus groups with recent new-entrant vehicle buyers in Gauteng, and in-depth ethnographic interviews with five higher-LSM households in Gauteng and the Western Cape.
The qualitative work was layered over desk research and Naamsa industry data. Together, the findings paint a picture of a market in which heritage and brand prestige no longer carry the weight they once did.
Kla's segmentation identifies four buyer mindsets shaping car choice today: aspirational upgraders (36%), cautious considerers (27%), smart value maximisers (20%) and established loyalists (17%).
The smart value maximisers and aspirational upgraders are where challenger brands are winning most decisively. Among current challenger brand owners, smart value maximisers make up 34% of the base, compared with 21% of legacy brand owners.
Established Loyalists, by contrast, represent 19% of legacy owners but just 6% of new-entrant owners.
"Loyalty to legacy brands has not disappeared, but it has softened considerably," says Jenni Pennacchini, managing partner at Kla. "Value-led buyers now see switching as acceptable, and they are switching in meaningful numbers."
A consistent frustration emerged across the qualitative work: legacy brands are seen as charging extra for what consumers now consider basic.
Larger touchscreens, 360-degree cameras, keyless entry and mobile app connectivity – all of this, respondents said, tends to come bundled into challenger brand vehicles across the range. Legacy brands, they felt, still treat these as paid upgrades.
"Why must I pay extra for tech in a legacy brand when the Chinese brands give it to me as a standard?" one respondent asked.
Extended warranties and service plans have become another defining factor. The study found that five to seven years of coverage is now considered standard among the challenger brands, with some offering up to ten years, or warranties of up to a million kilometres.
Legacy brands are typically set at three to five years, with extensions available at additional cost. For buyers navigating a tight economy, the challenger brand warranty proposition functions as a form of financial risk management, not just a perk.
The study is clear that challenger brands are not winning on every dimension. Respondents openly acknowledge weaker engine performance, higher fuel consumption, and lingering questions around long-term reliability and parts availability. But for most, the trade-off is conscious and acceptable.
Every day driving, they say, does not demand high performance. Comfort, tech and space matter more. Good enough, increasingly, beats best-in-class.
For legacy brands, the findings point to opportunity rather than defeat. Kla identifies several levers that can be activated without reinventing the product itself - bundling features into simpler, more inclusive packages, extending warranties to match new buyer expectations, modernising the digital discovery experience, and re-engineering the test drive as a trust-building moment rather than a transactional one.
"Elite legacy brands remain the gold standard that new entrants are still emulating," adds Pennacchini. "But mid-tier legacy brands are caught in the middle, too expensive to compete on value, and no longer prestigious enough to compete on aspiration. The good news is that the shifts driving this category are well understood, and the response is within reach."
The category, Kla concludes, has shifted from asking "can I trust this brand?" to a more demanding question: "what is this brand doing for me, right now, that justifies its cost?"
