Thursday, April 06, 2006



TWA didn't believe me... so here goes.

Amount of urban road space in that is GPS mapped in South Africa=17,400 KM ( A)
Average Car Length (including JHB following distance of 75 cm)= 5metres(B )
Therefore number of Cars on a hundred percent full road per lane, =A/B x 1000 = 3,480,000 (C)
Double lane highways (say 10% of this) so add 10% (=C x 110%)= 3,828,000 (D)
Percentage of urban roads not being used at any on time (ie no traffic in the "other direction") = 30%. 70% of D= 2,679,600 (E,)
No of Audis per every car (1 in 31), 86,439 , , F , =E/31
Add: Audis in garages getting fixed after crashing into taxis, 1,355 , , G,
Add: No of Audis countrywide belonging to farmers (ie those that don't drive on GPS mapped urban roads -(I don’t know that any don't drive Isuzu, Hilux or Merc) but there must be a few) say = 5 (H)
Add: No of Audis that are driving in between the taxis in the emergency lane (mostly Metro Police Cars)= 30 (I)
Total number of Audis in SA ==F+G+H+I = 88,000 , , J, Cars older than 8 years (say 1 in 5 = 20% = 17,566 , 20.0% (K)
Lifespan of the rest of the Audis (better than alfa's!)= 8 years
Number of Audis bought in last 8 years=J-K= 70,434
Average growth rate of car purchases over the last 8 years therefore present value at end of year 1 of 70434 with an average of 10% growth rate over 8 years
Year 1, 6,159 , 1998
Year 2, 6,775 , 1999
Year 3, 7,452 , 2000
Year 4, 8,198 , 2001
Year 5, 9,017 , 2002
Year 6, 9,919 , 2003
Year 7, 10,911 , 2004
Year 8, 12,002 , 2005
Sum of all years =70,434 (check) therefore the number of Audis sold in 2005 is 12002.

2 comments:

Third World Ant said...

Uh-huh. Number of Audi's per every car = 1 in 31. Where'd you get that, eh?

My logic would've followed the course I wrote on my post, but with far more accurate numbers (rounded for ease of calculation, as no calculators are allowed):

SA popn = 45 million
less people under the working age (say 60% of popn), is 5.4 million

That leaves 18 million

Unemployment at 30% knocks out 5.4 million, we're left with 12.6 million people with jobs

Audi's cost a minimum of R200,000, so monthly repayment of a three-year motor plan is R4,500, so let's assume the minimum gross monthly salary is R12,500 for someone to buy an Audi (after tax, living expenses, and savings, not much is left for vehicles!)

Say 10% of the population earns a salary of R12,500 p/m, that equates to 1.26 million people

Audi's are not a bottom-of-the-range car, so assume the owners are more image conscious and buy their vehicles on motor plans and replace them much sooner than the average South African (8 years), say every 4 years.

Therefore, each year 315,000 people replace their cars purchased at more than R200,000 (these people are likely to buy new cars on motor plans, rather than second-hand cars without, hence we can exclude them from the second-hand car market)

Say there are 30 vehicle manufacturers in the country, this would imply that 10,500 Audi's were sold during the year. But we know that Audi A3's have gained in popularity (thanks to winning awards for best car of the year etc), so add a 20% market share to that, which comes out at 12,600.

Hmmm, that's a little off. You must be way smarter than me.

ATW said...

Good try - and it has been fun. (OK that's a bit of sad admission that I got a kick out of a spreadsheet). But at some point in the calculation chain one has to make a random quantam leap thumbsuck. Mine was inter alia the '1 in 31' cars on the road. Yours comes in at "315000 people replace their cars". It's about twice that per NAAMSA etc, etc. I'm happy to call it even between us & quits. :)