Good day, everyone. I'm Faan van der Walt, CEO of WeBuyCars. It gives me great pleasure to welcome you and present another successful set of results for the financial year ended 30 September 2025. Joining me today are Chris Rein, our Chief Financial Officer; Willem Klopper, Chief Strategy Officer; and Wynand Beukes, our Chief Digital Officer. I'll begin this presentation with a brief overview, after which Chris will take you through our financial performance for the year under review. Willem will then provide an update on our ESG initiatives, property expansion program, and strategic priorities. Finally, Wynand will showcase how data, innovation, and technology continue to drive WeBuyCars forward. After Wynand's section, we'll open the floor to questions. Please submit any questions you may have in the questions tab on the left side of your screen.
For WeBuyCars, the 2025 financial year was one of continued growth, achieved in a challenging and fast-changing environment. Despite some relief from lower interest rates and moderating inflation, consumers faced high living costs and constrained household affordability. These affordability challenges inevitably impacted us as well, with overall vehicle finance approvals across our banking partners pulling back in the second half of the year. Towards the end of the first half, we intentionally refined our buying strategy, focusing on slightly higher-value vehicles to support the expansion of our vehicle finance channel. At the same time, Chinese and other Asian brands intensified their presence in the market through highly competitive new vehicle offerings, increasing the pressure in price segments overlapping with some of our inventory. As a result, turnover in these segments moderated. In response, we adjusted prices to stimulate sales, release cash, and reinvest equity into the business.
While this placed short-term pressure on margins during the second half, it was a deliberate and strategic decision to protect liquidity and position the company for continued growth. In retrospect, these adjustments could have been implemented earlier. However, the result is now that we enter the new financial year with a strong, well-balanced inventory base, which is in line with current demand patterns. The year under review reaffirmed the resilience of our business model and the capability of our team to remain agile, focused, and results-driven in a dynamic operating environment. Through disciplined execution and targeted strategic investments, WeBuyCars has strengthened its platform for sustainable, scalable growth and long-term value creation. Despite the challenging market conditions experienced during the year, we are proud to report core headline earnings growth of 15% for the year ended 30th September 2025.
Core headline earnings came in at ZAR 937.6 million, up from ZAR 815.4 million in the prior year. This growth was driven by a 13.1% increase in revenue, which reached ZAR 26.4 billion as a result of an 8.4% increase in volumes and higher average selling prices achieved during the year. Core headline earnings per share rose by 3.3% to ZAR 224.60. As has been communicated in previous results presentations, there has been a dilutory effect at the per-share level due to our pre-listing transaction in 2024. Chris will elaborate on this shortly. WeBuyCars continues to generate healthy levels of cash despite our investments in infrastructure and people to facilitate our growth objectives. This has allowed us to increase our dividends by 20% for the year. We have declared a final dividend of ZAR 0.30 per share.
Now, turning the attention to the physical expansion for the year, we continued with our land grab strategy. This map highlights our growing national footprint. We have opened 23 new buying pods during the year. These locations have been well received by the market, with an increasing number of vehicles being purchased at these locations. Also noteworthy was the successful opening of two new supermarkets during the year, one being Rustenburg, which was opened on 1 October 2024, and the other being Vereeniging supermarket that was opened on 1 August 2025. The Vereeniging supermarket was aimed at expanding our reach in Gauteng and has delivered exceptional returns since opening. These expansions, along with enhancements to our existing footprint, have positively impacted our volumes. Units bought increased by 7.7% to 180,576 units, while units sold rose by 8.4% to 179,600 compared to the prior year.
Now, moving on to the vehicle park slide, this provides context on the market landscape and highlights why we see significant potential for continued growth. The graph illustrates the overall South African vehicle park. The light line depicts steady growth in the total number of registered vehicles in South Africa over the past 10 years. The darker green line shows that new vehicle replenishment rate has increased strongly over the past year, well above the vehicle write-off rate. This reflects a growing park and expanding opportunities for WeBuyCars. This trend is highly encouraging for us as it reinforces our strategy to grow our market share in the used vehicle segment and continue our long-term expansion trajectory. During the 2025 financial year, the South African automotive market experienced a structural shift driven by the rapid rise of new Chinese entrants and other value-focused Asian brands.
The new vehicle registrations grew strongly, particularly in the second half of the year, increasing by 15.5% compared to the same period in 2024. This growth was largely fueled by the exceptional performance of these emerging brands. These new brands have captured significant market share through compelling pricing, flexible financing options, high-value offerings, and modern technology, all attributes that resonate strongly with today's consumers. Over the same period, used vehicle registrations remained flat, underscoring that WeBuyCars has continued to increase its market share. While this heightened competition presents short-term challenges, it also creates exciting long-term opportunities. An expanding new vehicle park increases the pool of vehicles entering into the used market, generating future growth potential for WeBuyCars. Our data-driven approach enables us to track these trends, monitor pricing, and strategically capture value as vehicles change hands.
Our volume growth in recent years has significantly outpaced that of the broader used vehicle market, demonstrating our continued success in expanding market share. This next slide covers our marketing and digital presence. We are especially proud of the significant momentum gained across our digital platforms. Growing engagement highlights the exceptional work of our marketing team in strengthening customer relationships and reinforcing confidence in the WeBuyCars brand. Our website remains a market leader, consistently attracting the highest traffic among automotive retail sites in South Africa. It has become a central tool for consumers to research, compare, and purchase vehicles. Our social media presence has grown significantly across all major platforms. TikTok and Instagram, in particular, are our fastest-growing channels, helping us reach a wider audience, particularly younger motorists and first-time buyers. Next, I would like to provide further perspective on our succession planning process.
As announced in the SENS released earlier this morning, our board has approved the appointment of Dr. Wynand Beukes as Deputy Chief Executive Officer effective 1 January 2026. Wynand currently serves as Chief Digital Officer and has been a valued member of the WeBuyCars executive team since 2018. Since joining, he has played a pivotal role in driving the company's digital transformation. His strategic insight, innovative thinking, and deep understanding of our core business have been instrumental in strengthening our operational and technological foundation. As a founder, one of my key priorities has always been to build a strong and capable leadership team that can sustain the business well into the future. I'm proud to say that we have developed an exceptional executive team who have consistently demonstrated sound judgment, strategic capability, and commitment to the company's values.
My own involvement in WeBuyCars is threefold: as a Director, the current CEO, and a significant shareholder. With this leadership team firmly in place, I'm confident that within the next two years, I will be able to step back from my CEO role while remaining actively involved and available to support the team as needed. Looking forward, we are confident in the company's growth prospects. Continued investment in our systems, technology, talent, and infrastructure ensures that WeBuyCars remains well-equipped to pursue its expansion strategy and further strengthen its market position. As the automotive market evolves, value for money will remain a key driver of consumer choice. This aligns strongly with WeBuyCars' core strengths, offering customers a wide and diverse range of vehicles at competitive prices. We are positioned to capture growing demand and strengthen our position as the market leader.
With that, I'll hand over to Chris to guide you through the financial performance for the year.
Thank you, Faan. Good morning to you all, and thank you for taking the time to participate in our 30 September 2025 annual financial results. Before taking you through our results, I would like to share a few contextual comments that you will find useful in interpreting this set of results. The numbers in the year-end financial statements have been compiled in full compliance with IFRS, and the principal accounting policies are consistent with those applied when preparing the annual financial statements for the year-end 30 September 2024.
We think that the quality of earnings is very good, and I would encourage everyone to read the summarized consolidated results and the audited consolidated annual financial statements, which set out a huge amount of useful information and gives a more comprehensive insight into the full year results and financial position. The group continued on its long-term growth strategy with core headline earnings for the year to 30 September 2025 at ZAR 937.6 million, growing 15%, and core headline earnings per share at ZAR 224.60, growing 3.3% when compared to the prior year. The earnings per share metrics were impacted by the February, March, and April 2024 pre-listing new share issues, which I will speak to later.
The key drivers of the growth in headline earnings were higher volumes, market share gains, higher average selling prices, an improved net insurance result, lower finance costs, and cost efficiencies driven by economies of scale. Faan has taken you through the salient features at a high level. Highlights from my perspective include a 15% increase in core headline earnings at ZAR 937.6 million, revenue at ZAR 26.4 billion, up 13.1% on the prior year, a 13.1% increase in EBITDA, the operating leverage evidenced by a 13.1% increase in revenue, and a 15% increase in core headline earnings.
A very respectable core return on invested capital at 25.1%, net cash generated from operating activities at ZAR 677.3 million, which is 14.5% up on the prior year, as well as the declaration of a final cash ordinary dividend of ZAR 0.30 per ordinary share, up 20% on the ZAR 0.25 final dividend declared in the prior year. Volumes bought and sold at 180,576 and 179,002 were 7.7% and 8.4% up on the prior year. WeBuyCars continues to gain market share, with sales volumes exceeding 15,000 units in six of the last 12 months. We recorded an all-time record number of units sold in the month of November 2024 at 16,294. The next slide sets out a summary of our consolidated statement of profit and loss.
WeBuyCars recorded an 8.4% increase in units sold, a 13.1% increase in revenue at ZAR 26.4 billion, a 13.1% increase in EBITDA, and a 9.7% increase in operating profit. The growth in volumes, margin, and profitability that we saw in the first half of the financial year has slowed in the second half. Faan has touched on the competitive trading environment, more specifically how we've competed aggressively against the growing new vehicle market and with new Chinese and Asian entrants to the market. This has put pressure on our volumes sold and on margins in the second half of the year. Despite these challenges, the business delivered a 15% increase in core headline earnings. The finance and insurance income, which is disclosed in the annual financial statements under revenue, increased by 14.5% from ZAR 472.5 million to ZAR 541.2 million, a particularly pleasing performance.
I will elaborate more on this when I take you through the finance channel later. Another key driver of the growth in core headline earnings was an improved net insurance result. Our insurance sale captive delivered a profit of ZAR 131.6 million in the current year, compared to ZAR 84.4 million in the prior year. This represents a 55.8% improvement. Both of these years were accounted for in line with the requirements of IFRS 17, the accounting standard for insurance contracts. Disciplined inventory and cash management, coupled with lower interest rates, had a favorable impact on the finance costs at ZAR 128.6 million, 18.6% down on the prior year. I will touch on this point again later. Moving to earnings, headline earnings and core earnings, you will remember that we had two adjustments to the headline earnings to get to core earnings in the prior year.
These are the same two adjustments that we communicated with our first set of full year results for the financial year to 30 September 2024. For those of you who are listening to this presentation for the first time, I'll briefly explain these two adjustments. Firstly, pursuant to the successful listing on the main board of the JSE, the company incurred one-off professional, legal, and JSE listing fees of just over ZAR 45 million. The second adjustment, a ZAR 426.5 million adjustment, relates to the pre-listing call options on the founder's 25.1% shareholding in the group, which was derecognized on the 25th of March 2024. This fair value loss on derecognition of the call option derivative was one-off in nature, non-core, and had no cash flow impact. There were no adjustments to headline earnings for the year to 30 September 2025.
Core headline earnings at ZAR 937.6 million, off 15% up on the prior year, and the core headline earnings per share of ZAR 224.60 is 3.3% up on the prior year. The basic headline and core headline earnings per share in the current year were impacted by the February, March, and April 2024 new share issues implemented as part of the pre-listing capital raise, which was approved by shareholders prior to the listing of WeBuyCars on the JSE on 11 April 2024. A total of 83.2 million new shares were issued in this regard. On the next slide, operating profit is up 9.7% on the prior year. Finance income is down 2.2%, but more importantly, finance costs were down 18.6% year-on-year.
The average prime interest rate in South Africa was 0.75% lower on a time-weighted basis in the year to 30 September 2025 when compared to the prior year. On the finance costs, we managed debt levels proactively and were able to pay down our debt during periods of high cash generation, specifically in the months of October, November, December, January, July, and September. Despite a strategic inventory build of approximately ZAR 500 million during the year under review, we were still able to lower the finance costs. As explained in our interim results presentation in May 2025, this was aided by interest savings from agreeing more favorable interest rates with our working capital and property finance providers. The effective taxation rate was lower than the company tax rate of 27% due to the higher net insurance result discussed earlier.
This income is taxed in the insurance sale captive and is accounted for accordingly. On the next slide, EBITDA at ZAR 1.49 billion is 13.1% up on the prior year. Operating profit at ZAR 1.34 billion is up 9.7% on the prior year, and the core headline earnings, as explained previously, at ZAR 938 million, is up 15% on the prior year. All three of these income statement metrics are all-time records for WeBuyCars. The lower graph shows the cash conversion in 2025 when compared to the 2024 and the 2023 financial years. In the current year, we generated net cash from operating activities of ZAR 677.3 million. This is 14.5% up on the prior year. The cash conversion at 72% was impacted by a 20.3% or a ZAR 500 million inventory build in the current year.
This inventory investment will support our growth plans and has WeBuyCars well placed for the new supermarket openings that are planned for November and December 2025, which Willem will explain in some more detail. It also places us well for the higher volume months of October, November, and December 2025. The next slide sets out a sales channel analysis for the 12 months under review. Total units sold were up 8.4%. Sales to dealers, which is the B2B category, were up 13.7% at 41,159 units, and this made up 23% of our total sales volumes. Demand from our dealers was higher in the current year. The majority of these sales are enabled on our online auction engine, where we conduct a new arrival auction every day of the week. We also work closely with our higher volume dealers to improve their value proposition.
Financed transactions at ZAR 32,899 were only up 6.5% on the prior year. We are now averaging just north of 2,700 finance deals per month. It was a difficult year for the finance channel despite a declining interest rate environment, with lower levels of consumer confidence and consumers displaying a lower propensity to take on new debt. This channel was also impacted by lower bank approval rates and the competitive product offerings from the Asian and Chinese OEMs. The enhancements made to our own WeFin finance application should positively impact efficiencies, product sales, and finance sales volumes going forward. Despite the lower percentage increase in finance deals, we managed to grow our finance and insurance commission income by 14.5% to ZAR 541.2 million. The number of ancillary products sold per finance deal is now consistently above 3.3.
The private cash channel showed a 7% increase to 104,597 units, and a consistent supply of affordable vehicles to meet the demand for mobility at appropriate price points is the ingredient for success in this channel. Our partnership with Capitec Bank is bearing fruit. In the second half of the year, we sold approximately 700 vehicles per month, funded in part or in full by an unsecured Capitec Purpose Loan. This now represents approximately 8.7% of private vehicle sales. From a balance sheet perspective, the investment in property, plants, and equipment is up 47.6%. The majority of the property, plants, and equipment, more specifically ZAR 1.5 billion thereof, is the land and buildings that are owned by the group from which the group trades.
We added ZAR 423.5 million to the land and buildings for the recently opened Vereeniging supermarket and for the Lansdowne, Montana, and Witbank supermarkets, which are currently under construction. The only other material increase relates to the Silver Lake supermarket, which property transfer was approved by the City Council, and the transfer was effected on 31 January 2025. This property transfer added ZAR 80 million to the property, plant, and equipment balance as at 30 September 2025. Inventory runs are up 20.3%, and inventory volumes are up 12.1%. The inventory volume growth is in line with the increase in sales and parking bays. The inventory value per unit at approximately ZAR 186,000 has increased in comparison to the prior year due to vehicle price inflation, as well as a strategic decision taken to buy more low-mileage financeable units.
Total interest-bearing liabilities were up 8.9% on the prior year, and I will elaborate more on this on our borrowings later. On the next slide, you will see that we made a decision to increase the inventory write-down at 30 September 2025 to 3% of total motor vehicle inventories. This is up from the 1.7% at 30 September 2024. The increased write-down at ZAR 91.4 million is a function of the higher inventory value, the higher number of units in inventory, the higher average inventory value per unit, and the current competitive new vehicle landscape, with affordable Chinese and Asian brands competing in a price range overlapping with parts of our inventory. In the current financial year, we developed and refined a predictive model that more accurately tracks vehicle sale-through data and predicts future price markdowns for aged vehicles in inventory at year-end based on historic markdowns and margins.
We are of the view that the write-down methodology is robust and that a conservative inventory write-down to the lower of cost and net realizable value has been raised at 30 September 2025. Moving to interest-bearing liabilities, a company's debt levels are always of interest to investors. WeBuyCars is a cash-generative business and is conservatively geared. The net interest-bearing liabilities at ZAR 1.35 billion are ZAR 231 million, or 20.7% up on the prior year. This debt comprises property mortgage loans of ZAR 940.4 million to fund properties with a net book value of ZAR 1.5 billion, and working capital facilities of ZAR 410.4 million to fund inventory with a carrying value of ZAR 2.9 billion. The loan-to-value for the property mortgage loans and the working capital loans have dropped from 75% and 16.4% in the prior year to 62.2% and 13.8% respectively at 30 September 2025.
From this slide and from the statement of financial position, it is evident that the increase in inventories and land and buildings was only partly funded by interest-bearing liabilities. As a consequence of this prudent management of borrowing levels, WeBuyCars has comfortably met all loan covenants and has just north of ZAR 900 million of undrawn banking facilities to fund future growth initiatives. From a cash flow perspective, the cash generated from operations is up 12.7% year-on-year, and the cash generated from operating activities is up 14.5%. This is again indicative of the high cash conversion rates, and surplus cash has primarily been invested in inventory and land and buildings. My last slide addresses the final cash ordinary dividend for the year ended 30 September 2025.
As set out in the WeBuyCars pre-listing statement, the company's dividend policy, as a high-level benchmark, is to declare between 25% and 33% of its headline earnings as a dividend, subject to working capital and capital expenditure required for expansion. WeBuyCars is a growth company and intends to responsibly grow its footprint across South Africa. It believes that there are opportunities to capitalize on in the short to medium term, some of which Willem will speak to next. The pursuit and efficient execution of these opportunities should add value to shareholders. In this morning's SENS announcement, the board of WeBuyCars notified shareholders that a gross final cash ordinary dividend of ZAR 0.30 per ordinary share has been declared as of today's date.
This dividend has been calculated at 29% of the headline earnings of WeBuyCars for the second half of the financial year to 30 September 2025. The final dividend declared this time last year was ZAR 0.25 per share. I think that that is enough said from me. I will now hand over to our Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Willem Klopper. Thank you.
Thank you, Chris. In my presentation today, I'd like to share an update on the progress we've made across several key areas of the business. I'll start with our ESG initiatives, focusing on how our employee base has evolved over the past year and the strides we've made through our high-impact environmental projects. I'll then move on to our physical infrastructure and expansion, including some exciting updates on the three new supermarkets set to open in the coming months.
Finally, I'll touch on our key strategic initiatives, highlighting a few of the material focus areas that we've driven progress and innovation during the past year. Over the period, we've grown our staff complement to 3,562 employees. That's more than 400 new faces joining the WeBuyCars family during the year to steer the growth in the years to come. This continued growth is something we're very proud of, not just because of the numbers, but because of what it represents: opportunity, inclusion, and shared progress. Importantly, this expansion has gone hand in hand with greater diversity across the business. Black employees now represent 71.2% of our total workforce, and female employees make up 21.4% of our team, both of these percentages increasing on the prior year. We're also intensely focused on investing in our people, not just through job creation, but through continuous development and upskilling.
Across the organization, we've rolled out several learnerships, apprenticeships, and specialist training programs, particularly in technical areas of vehicle reconditioning and repair. As our reconditioning operations grow, so does our commitment to build a skilled, confident workforce that can deliver quality and consistency at scale. Behind the technical side, we've also placed strong emphasis on leadership and management development. Many of our senior and middle management have had the opportunity to participate in advanced training and leadership courses. The goal here is simple: to empower our people to lead with confidence, build capability with their teams, and prepare the next generation of WeBuyCars leaders. We firmly believe that investing in our people has a multiplier effect. It strengthens our culture, improves our service levels, and ultimately supports sustainable growth in the years to come.
Our [WeCare] team continues to make us proud through their incredible work in the communities around us. They've built lasting relationships with 51 community organizations nationwide, ranging from education and youth development to food security and community upliftment initiatives. These partnerships are rarely one-off donations. They're ongoing relationships that reflect our long-term commitment to making a tangible difference in the communities in which we operate. On the environmental front, our focus remains firmly on practical high-impact initiatives within our own control, especially across our supermarket network. We now have solar-generating systems installed at 10 of our 18 facilities, supplying 17.9% of our total electricity usage for the year, down from the prior period due to the solar plant at our large Midstream supermarket being inactive for a large part of the financial year. Water harvesting is another key focus area for us.
These systems now supply 20.6% of our total water usage, allowing us to wash vehicles efficiently while reducing both cost and the environmental impact. An exciting new water harvesting and vehicle wash asset came on stream at our Dome Prep Center during the year. Since becoming operational in mid-July, the locally designed 30-meter wash bay has processed over 11,000 vehicles, cutting the average wash times to just five to seven minutes per vehicle. The system can wash up to four vehicles simultaneously and recovers up to 90% of the water used. This new installation has made the vehicle preparation process significantly faster, more efficient, and environmentally more responsible. From a physical infrastructure perspective, we've made significant progress, particularly in the last six months. Our buying pods continue to play a key role in making the selling of vehicles more convenient for the South African public.
These container-sized evaluation-based sites are strategically located at high-traffic retail centers across the country. During the financial year, we added 23 new pods, bringing the total to 106 pods nationwide. Beyond convenience, these pods also play a valuable role in optimizing our logistic network, particularly within the larger metropolitan areas. We've also seen the expanding and upgrading of our existing supermarkets to increase retail display capacity, most notably with the project at George, Polokwane, Germiston, and the Dome. At the Dome alone, we added 482 new vehicle bays and a new arrivals section, which can park around 400 vehicles. This will free up retail space in our other Gauteng branches, with around 20%-30% of these vehicles in this new arrivals section expected to sell vehicles directly, entering and exiting the ecosystem of WeBuyCars without ever occupying a standard retail bay.
We've also opened our Rustenburg facility on the very first day of the financial year and later relocated the Pietermaritzburg facility to a more prominent site in December 2024. In August of this year, we commenced trading at the Vereeniging supermarket, marking our first presence in the Vaal Triangle, another important step in extending our footprint in this area. As mentioned during the half-year results, we're particularly excited about two large supermarket developments. They are both set to open within the next few weeks. Montana and Pretoria North, with a capacity of around 1,300 vehicles, is scheduled to open next week, Monday, the 24th of November. Lansdowne and Cape Town will be a week later on the 1st of December, which will also display roughly 1,300 vehicles once fully operational.
In addition, we've recently acquired a brownfield site in Witbank, where we plan to open a new supermarket in February 2026. Collectively, these developments will expand our retail display capacity by more than 20%, positioning us well to meet growing consumer demand in the year ahead. One of the most exciting new developments this year was the launch of Inspectify, which we introduced in conjunction with the opening of the Vereeniging branch in August 2025. Inspectify is our own self-developed brand and fully owned standalone entity conceived, designed, and built within WeBuyCars. It is designed to give customers a clearer, more transparent report of every vehicle, describing its condition in detail and highlighting all roadworthy relevant issues in a simple, user-friendly manner. Generation of Inspectify reports is now live across several of our supermarkets following a successful pilot phase in Vereeniging.
Early feedback from both customers and staff has been very positive, especially around the ease of use and its transparency. We're continuing to refine the reports for even greater depth and accuracy, and we believe Inspectify will soon become a key part of WeBuyCars' experience, strengthening our transparency, trust, and the confidence customers have in our brand. We've also made great progress with our WeFin modules. It's our integrated finance platform that is transforming how we manage the vehicle application process. With WeFin, finance applications are seamlessly submitted to banks through our NEXUS platform, enabling our finance and insurance representatives to collaborate within a single unified system. This will improve efficiency, strengthening our effectiveness ratios, and delivering a much smoother experience for customers and our staff. Importantly, WeFin has been designed with the flexibility in mind, giving us the building blocks to integrate additional functionality over time.
This includes the ability to add future lending partners or tailored alternatives for customers who may not qualify for traditional finance, ensuring we can serve an even greater base of customers within the WeBuyCars ecosystem. Another major success story has been our partnership with Capitec. These purpose-loaned products have grown by more than 150% in the last financial year. We are expanding the partnership further, with Capitec adding additional branches at Vereeniging, Montana, and the Lansdowne supermarket, and a second one that they are opening at the Dome. Together with Capitec and their team, we are continuously refining the unsecured loan application process to make it even simpler and faster for our customers, and we have seen a strong potential for further growth in this channel. I would like to briefly touch on our third-party sales initiative, which we have mentioned in prior presentations.
While the financial contribution is still modest at this stage, the underlying technology has been built, the proof-of-concept trials have been successful, and we're confident that this can evolve into a more meaningful channel over time. At the heart of our business and its success is what we do best: buying vehicles at the correct prices. Effective buying is the foundation of our entire business. It drives margins, inventory health, and turnover velocity. Buying excellence is about precision and discipline, from accurate evaluations and data-driven pricing to ensuring optimal sales strategies. Vereeniging's team have recently taken another deep dive into this process, focusing on removing friction, improving turnaround times, and enhancing the overall customer experience. This relentless focus is what keeps WeBuyCars the most efficient and trusted vehicle buying service in the country, and it remains our single most significant differentiator.
In closing, the progress we've made this year across our people, our infrastructure, our technology, and our partnerships highlights how far WeBuyCars has come and how well-positioned we are for the future. We're proud of what we've achieved, but even more excited about what lies ahead as we continue to build momentum and strengthen our leadership in the South African used vehicle market. I'll now hand over to Wynand to discuss some of the key technological advances and how our team is using them to improve operational decision-making. Thank you.
Thanks, Willem. The adoption of AI in WeBuyCars has been ongoing for several years now. The main areas we focus on are machine learning, computer vision, and natural language understanding. Computer vision is assisting to make vehicle inspections faster and more accurate.
It can identify the correct vehicle details, recognize dashboard warning lights, read tire information, and spot damages all automatically. These applications significantly reduce errors and deliver substantial time savings when implemented at scale. The soon-to-be-released [WeAll] project will take this even further, using computer vision and models to automate more tasks and make vehicle evaluations and inspections even quicker without losing accuracy. Natural language technology has become increasingly practical through the advancement of large language models such as ChatGPT or Grok, which underpin modern generative AI. Our publicly available Orange Bot on the website is a great example. It has been handling a large percentage of the questions that used to go to our customer care center, saving time and improving the customer experience and lead qualification.
We are now planning to expand the Orange Bot across the full website, creating a more natural and interactive way for people to buy or sell vehicles online. Internally, large language models have given us tremendous insight into customer complaints, social media posts, and agentic capabilities for our digital business platform. Managing over 15,000 vehicles nationwide is no small task, and these tools help us to do it efficiently without adding additional headcount. Augmenting decision-making by creating domain-specific agentic agents, which cooperate with one another to answer questions, allows us to streamline complex processes and make faster, smarter decisions. These agents also enable diagnostic and prescriptive decisions to be made autonomously. Many of our decisions are powered by predictive modeling.
We have built models to help qualify leads by estimating how likely are customers to sell the vehicle, the potential return on investment, how long it might take to sell, and the possible risk of loss on every vehicle. These insights help us to prioritize leads more effectively through our platform, and this makes our buying process smoother and more efficient. A big part of managing our inventory turnover, inventory levels, and the number of financeable vehicles depends on how effectively we use our sales channels. Machine learning plays a key role in optimizing these channels, helping us to stay in control of how we buy and sell our inventory, and this also allows us to adapt quickly and recalibrate our buying strategy to changing market conditions. Price determination is one of the things that really sets us apart.
Many factors influence vehicle prices beyond normal depreciation, things like market conditions, inventory levels, finance goals, desired margins, capacity, new branch openings, and overall business strategy. Our predictive models built on machine learning and statistical techniques drive most of these pricing decisions. As our data grows, we are able to uncover deeper insights and find new opportunities to optimize. We are constantly refining and retraining our models and also adopting the latest algorithms as technology evolves. At WeBuyCars, experimentation is part of who we are. It is how we answer the question, "What happens to Y if we change X?" At any given time, we are running dozens of experiments across digital marketing, our website, and even our internal buying and selling processes. Unlike regular operational data, experimental data let us draw real cause and effect insights.
We use these experiments to fine-tune our website layout, boost lead generation, speed up processes, and measure the true impact of every change we make. By testing new ideas quickly and at small scale, we often uncover surprising results that we would never find through gut instinct or subjective decision-making. All of this is made possible by our proprietary digital business platform, which was built entirely in-house by our information technology team. Designed from the ground up, this platform serves as the backbone of our operations, integrating data, AI, and experimentation seamlessly across the business. It enables us to deploy new machine learning models quickly, run experiments safely, and adapt our digital tools in real time to market conditions. Because this platform is purpose-built for flexibility and innovation, our teams can continuously test, learn, and improve without being limited by third-party systems.
This strong technological foundation empowers us to move faster, make smarter decisions, and deliver a more efficient data-driven experience for both our customers and our valued employees. This concludes our formal presentation. We will now go to the questions and answers section of this morning's program.
Thank you, and thank you for all the questions that have been submitted. I'm going to jump straight in. There's quite a few that we have to get through. I'm not sure if we'll get to all of them. If we fail to answer any of the questions, we've got your emails, we'll reach out to you in the days to come. The first question is to Faan. It's regarding our market share. I'm going to merge a few questions here, Faan.
It's, "How do you determine your market share?" We usually give a range of between 10% and 12%, so if you can just provide a bit of color on how we determine that and how much room there is still to grow at that market share.
Thank you, Willem. Yeah, understanding our market share is very important to us because it illustrates the size of the prize and how much we can still grow in the years ahead. We use two ways to determine our market share. The first one being the statistics we get from eNaTIS every month, where they indicate how many used vehicles were registered in South Africa. This number usually varies from the lowest being about 140,000 vehicles per month to as high as 160,000 vehicles per month, as we've seen last month.
That gives you approximately 1.7 million vehicles being traded secondhand per year, and that's been very stable over the last five years. It's hovering just below or above 1.7 million used vehicles being registered per annum in South Africa. We calculate our number, how many cars do we sell, and what does that look as a percentage of that? That's one way of looking at that. Coming in from a different angle, just to support this number we arrive at, is to look at the whole car park. We know that there's roughly around 12 million registered vehicles on the roads in South Africa, and our data shows that when someone buys a vehicle brand new, they hang on to that for around five years before they sell it again.
When someone buys a used vehicle, the ownership period is quite a bit shorter, namely between three to three and a half years, depending on what you bought. When you look at the 12 million cars on the roads and you subtract cars younger than five years, now every year there's around 500,000 cars being sold brand new. Let's subtract 3 million cars off the carpool, which leaves you then with around 9 million cars. We do a very conservative calculation to say, "Okay, let's assume only 20% of those cars." In other words, only every five years, not every three and a half years, as our statistics tell us, just to do a conservative calculation, say only 20% of the 9 million gets traded every year. That gives you 1.8 million.
That's very close to the 1.7 million you see when you're looking at the eNatus statistics, which leaves you with 150,000 vehicles being bought and sold monthly. Now, we're currently sitting roughly between 15,000-16,000 a month. That brings us to a market share, when calculated like that, of about, let's call it 10.5%. Looking back, when we go back five years, in 2021, that market share was sitting around 5.2%. Over a five-year period, we've managed to double our market share, and we will continue on the same trend and build on the market share. Year on year, it's again up over 1% up. Looking positive, and as new vehicles come into the car park, the car park grows, and that's just more opportunity for us.
Thank you, Faan. Chris, the next question is to you.
Again, I'm going to try and add two questions into one. It's regarding our current capacity. Firstly, where are we going with parking bays? Parking bays is one of the key metrics that we usually communicate to the market and how we see that growth. Coupled to that, how does that impact our balance sheet from a funding and a debt perspective and any potential capital raises in the next year or two? On our sort of medium-term target of getting to 23,000 vehicles by FY 2028, are we comfortable that we're on track with that growth?
Yes, thank you, Willem. Three key numbers. The number of parking bays at the end of September 2025 is 12,911. That's 14.9% up on the prior year. If we roll those two numbers forward to the end of financial 2026 and 2027, we get to 15,775 and 17,175.
Next year, being the financial year to September 2026, sees a 22.2% increase in number of parking bays, some of which were mentioned a little earlier by Willem in his presentation. If we roll forward to the end of 2027 with 17,175 parking bays, and we multiply that by our usual inventory turn of approximately 1.3, you'll see that we add 22,000 vehicles a month and very close to the FY 2028 target of selling 23, buying and selling 23,000 motor vehicles per month. At the end of September 2025, we owned 11 of those 18 facilities, and at the end of 2026, that metrics will change obviously slightly, and we'll own 15 out of 21 of those facilities. As seen in financial 2024 and 2025, the business is very cash-generative.
We will borrow some money and have borrowed some money for some of these property developments on a mortgage loan facility, but I foresee after having completed budgets forward for three years, I foresee no reason for a capital raise in the future.
Thanks, Chris. Wynand again, there's a few questions around Inspectify, and then there's one question that I'm also going to add to it. You mentioned the word [WeAll]. Can you provide some color to that? From an Inspectify perspective, can you maybe just tell us what you and your team have looked at, and maybe also how does that impact the relationship with Dekra and moving away from Dekra to Inspectify?
Thank you, Willem. Going back to Dekra, I think one of our cornerstones in WeBuyCars is transparency on the vehicles we sell.
We've decided to insource the Inspectify brand, as you mentioned in your presentation, and build and take control of the technology. I think one of the challenges with the previous report was it was a very technical report, and we tried to rebuild that and to make it more of an understandable report for our consumers to understand the condition of the vehicle when they purchase. We've had a very long and successful relationship with Dekra, and we transferred the staff over to WeBuyCars effective August this year, and we've rolled out, I think, to about 80% of our branches already the Inspectify brand. This will enable us to create a more accurate data set once we've purchased the vehicle. It enhances the data set of the buyer evaluation and added to our pricing models for pricing on our sales channels.
In regards to [WeAll], very exciting project. It's a U-shaped [WeAll] project that the vehicle drives through that we use to do an inspection of the vehicle. It has around 14 cameras. It takes about 2,000 pictures of the vehicle, including the undercarriage, the tires, reading the tire tread depth, and even the tire information on the sides. Very excited about that. 800 LED lights on that, and we think that's going to speed up our inspections of our vehicles quite significantly. We see that we think if we can produce that at scale at low cost, we can roll that across the country and speed up our inspections very quickly.
I think just one thing to add there is we sort of shopped around the world because there's a few guys that do it, but the fact that you and your team were able to build the prototype and roll it out and keep that development in-house is a big win for us. Yeah, staying true to our nature, we insource all the development, as explained in the previous commentary. Yeah, we want to be in control of the software and in control of the data, and that first prototype is set to launch the 1st of December this year.
Thanks, Wynand. Faan, there's quite a few questions around the Chinese vehicles. We've also made the comment that we recalibrated. Can you maybe just give your view on the Chinese landscape?
Not just, I think you touched on it already for the last six months of this financial year, but going forward, the Chinese brands continue to be quite aggressive on pricing with very strong warranties. How do we see that going forward? There is one quick question that I think is an easy answer. One of the questions is, are we at risk of gray imports as well?
Let me answer that one first. I do not think we are at risk regarding gray imports. There is legislation in place that prohibits that, and there is no indication that that is going to change in the foreseeable future. Regarding the Chinese cars, it seems to be the topic of many conversations nowadays in the media because, yeah, the legacy brands are definitely under pressure with Chinese brands and other Asian-manufactured cars coming into the market at a price point where it is difficult to ignore.
Now, over the last, let's call it five years, new vehicle sales have been in a slump. We didn't really see growth at all in new vehicle sales, but this year has been quite different. We've seen a 15% increase in new vehicle sales year to date, and usually when new car supply grows, then it will push down used car pricing, and that's exactly what we've seen, especially in the second quarter this year. Now, for WeBuyCars, it did have an impact on overlapping parts of our inventory. As you all know, the average age and price of cars we buy and sell is about nine years old, sitting way below ZAR 200,000.
The majority of our stock holding and operations are not affected by these market trends that we see from time to time, but we did have to recalibrate portions of our stock that did overlap with some of these new Chinese entrants that have a compelling value offering, which we did. It did slow down and put margin pressure on that inventory, but we are through that now, and a correction has been made in our pricing models. We recalibrated it, and we are looking forward to these cars flowing in because every new vehicle sold becomes part of the used car park that we need to trade in the future.
Thanks, Faan. The next one I will take, it is around Capitec and just an explanation around the growth in these purpose-loan products that we offer.
I think the main reason for the growth is the Capitec team and the WeBuyCars team have been working together well over the last 18 months. We've got dedicated resources sort of trying to streamline that process. We want to integrate that even further with our app and their websites. I think the one thing that really helps us is the speed at which they can give approvals, and that's really been very easy for our salespeople and for customers to be able to get that loan faster. It is typically at slightly higher rates than vehicle asset finance as it remains an unsecured loan, and therefore Capitec is also opening up little mini branches in our two new supermarkets, as well as for Vereeniging and a second one at the Dome.
It's an exciting new prospect, but like I said, it's not competing with vehicle asset finance. It's still an unsecured loan. Chris, the next one is for you. It is regarding the net insurance result. Please provide some more color on the impressive growth and what are the main growth drivers in this.
Thank you, Willem. I think there are probably two factors. One is in the last sort of 12 to 18 months, we've done a lot of work on repricing the individual product components and the products that we sell. We've made the products affordable and value for money. I think that's on the one hand. On the other is, as mentioned earlier in my presentation, we're now selling consistently in excess of 3.3 products per finance deal. Both of those factors have a favorable impact on volumes.
Thank you. Let me just check.
There's one or two new coming in. Just give me a second. Okay, Faan, a question to you. WeBuyCars is historically focused on vehicles with an average age of nine years old. You mentioned that you're strategically focusing on lower mileage vehicles. How does this impact WeBuyCars as there is a lot more competition in this space?
Yeah, that's a great question. What happened in April, May of this year is our inventory levels were at an all-time high, and we had to make a decision what type of vehicles to focus on. We looked at the profitability per channel, meaning what type of vehicles should we buy?
Should we buy cars that sell quick, but there's no opportunity for second growth, in other words, financiable cars, or should we focus on financiable cars, which usually represents newer vehicles with lower mileage and are hence more expensive? We decided to do that, which in hindsight was not the right decision because with all these Chinese cars also competing in the ZAR 300,000-ZAR 500,000 range bracket, having more of those vehicles around was probably not the right decision, and that's why we recalibrated. We're in a very fortunate position that right now we're adding 20% more bays over the next few months. Over the next year or two, we'll never run out of space again, and that gives us the opportunity to buy each and every car and be really aggressive in our purchasing across all price brackets.
We will never again sacrifice the one in favor of another.
Thanks, Faan. I think this has been the last question now to Chris. A question came through regarding the inflation target of 3% that has been communicated for the country, but that is most likely going to go with slower rate adjustments. Is this a concern for us, and how does it affect our business in the longer term?
Thank you, Willem. If we think through that one carefully, what may probably transpire is lower sort of finance interest rate declines. We might see less interest rate declines, and we might not see as many. I think there's some positivity in there too. If we're able to keep the inflation rate down low, this should put more money back into the consumer wallet, and this should be favorable for retail in South Africa.
Thanks, Chris.
I'm going to give it 10 more seconds to see if there's another question coming through. I think we've touched on most of them. There's one or two that we won't have time for, but we'll reach out to those investors or persons who've sent through those messages over the next couple of days. Thank you, Chris, Faan, and Wynand. That'll conclude our Q&A for this morning.