WeBuyCars, South Africa’s largest second-hand vehicle trader, cemented its status as the best-performing stock on the JSE in 2024. Since its listing in April 2024, its share price has risen about 120%. The company has surpassed expectations, delivering a 16.5% increase in full-year revenue and a 23.4% rise in core headline earnings to R815.4m.
At the company’s first AGM since listing, held last week, executives laid out an ambitious road map for expansion while addressing industry challenges. Investors remain bullish, with analysts calling WeBuyCars a rare consumer-facing success story in a volatile economy. “In a bit of a dampened market, we have performed well, so we’re very happy with our results,” CEO Faan van der Walt said at the AGM.
He noted that used vehicle registrations, up 4.5% at the end of financial 2025, presented a “bright picture” thanks to affordability and efforts to make buying a used car easier. In January, used vehicle registrations were nearly 10% better year on year. “It is encouraging to see that part of the market growing.”
Anchor Capital CEO Peter Armitage says: “WeBuyCars is one of the most exciting stocks on the JSE right now. They have managed to build a good business with a reasonable growth margin, compounded by excellent management.”
The company is growing its footprint through property acquisitions, extending its existing supermarkets and adding more buying pods. It has expanded recently in East London and Rustenburg and plans to open a flagship branch in Cape Town by the end of the financial year.
Armitage says WeBuyCars’s separation from Transaction Capital was a positive move, given the parent company’s struggles. Transaction Capital, once a JSE darling, saw its share price collapse in 2023 due to financial troubles at SA Taxi, its minibus financing division, which faced rising defaults and repossessions. “Transaction Capital left WeBuyCars somewhat tainted, so it was good they separated. And when consumers got to know its business, the share price more than doubled.”
WeBuyCars operates in an industry traditionally dominated by bricks-and-mortar dealerships and classified platforms such as AutoTrader and Gumtree. Unlike Combined Motor Holdings, which focuses on dealership-based sales, or Motus, which has a diversified automotive portfolio, WeBuyCars cuts out the middleman, offering a direct-to-consumer model that prioritises volume, convenience and price efficiency.
The company sold more than 40,000 vehicles in the last three months of its financial year — a record. While used car prices have declined since the pandemic, WeBuyCars has sustained higher average selling prices, suggesting strong pricing power and consumer demand.
“It’s not just about selling cars — it’s about turning inventory fast and keeping costs low,” says Armitage, pointing to the company’s unique market position between high-end vehicle retailers and local dealerships. Luxury vehicle retailers focus on high-margin sales with significant financing components. At the other end, smaller local dealerships operate in a fragmented space, often dealing with lower-cost vehicles and relying on personal customer relationships rather than scale.
The WeBuyCars model, by contrast, enables efficiency at scale while offering competitive pricing and a streamlined, tech-driven customer experience.
WeBuyCars is not immune to macroeconomic headwinds. Interest rates remain elevated, putting pressure on discretionary spending, while fuel prices and insurance costs continue to rise.
It’s not just about selling cars — it’s about turning inventory fast and keeping costs low
— Peter Armitage
Yet, these very pressures seem to have driven consumers towards used vehicles, benefiting WeBuyCars, says Armitage. Unlike dealerships reliant on finance-heavy purchases, WeBuyCars attracts a high percentage of cash buyers, insulating it from fluctuations in bank lending rates.
At the AGM, executives addressed the growing presence of cheap Chinese vehicle imports in South Africa and their potential impact on the used car market. While brands such as Haval, Chery and BYD are gaining traction, WeBuyCars sees this as an opportunity rather than a threat.
“In 2024, 9.1% of our sales were Chinese brands and there’s no indication that this is going to slow down in 2025,” said the company’s chief digital officer, Wynand Beukes. “It’s actually increasing more than the previous year.”
As Armitage notes, high turnover in the new car market ultimately benefits WeBuyCars’s long-term supply pipeline.
While WeBuyCars is winning over investors, its customer relations have faced scrutiny. The National Consumer Commission recorded 46 complaints against the company between April and December 2024 involving pricing, transparency and vehicle condition issues.
The company has acknowledged the concerns, emphasising its efforts to improve the customer experience. But Armitage says complaints are to be expected considering the nature of the company, and that the bigger risk to the company is what its competitors are doing.
“Good companies like this always attract competition. Companies like Bidvest’s Cubbi have the balance sheet to achieve that.”
With its strong earnings trajectory, scalable model and continued expansion, WeBuyCars remains a standout consumer stock on the JSE and continues to drive investor confidence.
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