• Changan sold 375 vehicles in October 2026, its best month in South Africa and 13% up on September
  • The Alsvin (153 units) and Hunter (102 units) made up more than two in every three sales
  • 94% of Changan customers would recommend the brand to friends and family
  • Sales grew 118% from Q1 to Q3 2026, and the plan for 2027 is to triple them

Pretoria, South Africa, 03 November 2026: Jameel Motors South Africa, the official importer and distributor of Changan, sold 375 vehicles in October 2026. That is the brand’s best month since it arrived in South Africa a year ago, and 44 more than the previous record of 331, set just a month earlier.

Changan opened its first flagship dealership on 23 October 2025 with no customers and a brand name most South Africans had either forgotten or never heard of. Twelve months on, its two best months are its two most recent, and sales grew 118% from the first quarter of 2026 to the third, representing a steady climb.

The Alsvin compact sedan was October’s top seller with 153 units, and the Hunter double-cab bakkie added 102. Together they made up more than two in every three Changans sold. On the commercial side, the Changan Star range launched at the Festival of Motoring in August, and it already has a three-month order bank. Businesses buy work vehicles on running costs and uptime, not on a badge, so those orders say a lot about how far trust in the name has come.

That trust shows up in the customer numbers too. Buying from a brand you don’t know is a leap of faith, and 94% of Changan customers say they would happily recommend one to friends and family. “That’s the number I look at first,” says Marinus Venter, Country Manager, Jameel Motors South Africa. “A sale tells you someone took a chance on you. A recommendation tells you they’d do it again, and put their name to it with the people closest to them. You only earn that by listening to the consumer.”

The company is also building the back-up a growing owner base needs. Changan is now sold through 40 dealers across eight provinces, double the 20 at launch. Parts are held in a 7,500 sqm warehouse in Kempton Park, with a 90% fill rate: nine out of every ten parts are on a shelf in South Africa, not on a ship. Behind it all stands Jameel Motors, which operates in more than 15 countries and represents some of the world’s best-known vehicle brands. Changan isn’t doing this alone.

More product is on the way, and some of it is already here. The Deepal S05 is in Changan dealers from the first week of November at R699 000 including VAT. It is the brand’s second range-extended electric vehicle (REEV) in South Africa, and it drives like an electric car because, in effect, it is one: a 160kW rear-mounted electric motor turns the wheels, while a 1.5-litre petrol engine acts only as a generator. Changan claims 175km on battery power alone and more than 1 000km in total, which takes the range anxiety out of a long weekend away. The Uni-S HEV’s arrival is imminent. It adds hybrid power to the Uni-S SUV, sold as a petrol-only model since April, and Changan claims fuel use of 5.1 l/100km. On paper, that’s 1 000km from its 51-litre tank. New models from the 2026 Paris Motor Show are due in South Africa in 2027, such as the Changan Nevo Q05 and Deepal S07 PHEV.

Next year, the plan is simple: double the efforts and triple the sales. “Here’s the thing about a new car brand: people want to know it’ll still be around in five years,” says Venter. “So we keep building. More dealers, more parts on the shelf, more models. A year ago we started from zero. Next year we want to triple what we did this year. We’re not visiting. We’re staying.”