If Suzuki’ s South African business history were a strategy, it would never have been approved for success.
The Japanese compact car brand has exited South Africa twice before returning in its current form in 2008. That lack of market presence and brand continuation is almost always a guarantee of long-term underperformance. But Suzuki’ s third chapter in South Africa has been remarkably successful.
It has grown into South Africa’ s secondlargest car brand. And that success mirrors its global performance. Suzuki has now become Japan’ s second biggest automaker.
For decades, the Japanese automotive hierarchy has been dominated by Toyota, with Honda second. However, Suzuki’ s rising global business has now surpassed Honda ' s. In the last financial year, Suzuki outsold Honda for the first time in history, to become Japan’ s second-placed automaker, behind Toyota.
The numbers were close, with Suzuki’ s 3,55 million units versus Honda’ s 3,37 million. But what is interesting is how Suzuki’ s done it. And why its presence in what is potentially the world’ s biggest car market is securing its future growth.
ACHIEVING WITHOUT AMERICA
Honda has two models in the American top-ten sales chart. That’ s an enviable position to be in. In comparison, Suzuki doesn’ t have a presence in the world’ s wealthiest mass-volume car market anymore, having exited its American operations through Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2012.
But not trading in America hasn’ t stopped Suzuki from overtaking Honda globally. The secret is that Suzuki’ s success, globally and in South Africa, lies in India.
The world’ s most populous country faces severe traffic congestion, slow average driving speeds, parking constraints, and affordability issues. Suzuki’ s compact cars are ideal for the Indian market, where it commands 40 % of new car sales.
Suzuki’ s scale in the Indian market has also influenced its auto assembly investments. The operational plan is for Suzuki’ s Indian production assets to deliver 4m cars by 2030, an increase of 50 % over its current Indian build capacity.
HOW INDIA SHAPES SUZUKI
With most of its business now in developing global markets, how has that influenced how Suzuki plans and develops products for markets like South Africa?
Nearly all of Suzuki’ s local product is sourced from India. Japanese-built Swifts and Jimny models reestablished Suzuki’ s brand equity in South Africa when it relaunched in 2008. But it is the Indian-built models that have created the affordability that’ s grown Suzuki past established passenger car leaders like VW.
With Suzuki committing significant production investments in India until 2030, it benefits the brand’ s South African operations, too. Because Suzuki’ s Indian assembly plants and supply chain directly influence the future product specifications and availability for South African Suzukis.
WORDS IN ACTION 4 JUNE 2026