Volkswagen Africa Achieves Historic Polo Export Growth to Europe and Asia-Pacific

Volkswagen’s African unit exported a new high record of 131,485 ‘Polo’ automobiles to European and Asia Pacific countries in 2024 as per the firm said on Wednesday.

This was a big increase from Volkswagen’s old year record of 108,422 vehicles manufactured in 2019. These are being manufactured at the Kariega factory in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. However the company did not provide any estimates for 2023 exports.

Since July 2024, Volkswagen Africa has been an exclusive supplier of the ‘Polo’ to around 38 nations in Europe and Asia Pacific. These exports have made up 88% of all automobiles shipped from South Africa last year.

The Polo hatchback also did well in the local market by selling 12,253 units and finishing fourth in its segment. The Polo Vivo manufactured domestically achieved the top spot by selling 25,914 units.

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Power outages have slowed South Africa’s economic growth for more than a decade, harming a variety of industries including manufacturing, so considering all these, this amount of automobiles export is a big step forward.

However, the country witnessed no load shedding between March 2023 and January 30th 2025, following a significant improvement in Eskom’s power generation performance.