A new research report from Berg Insight sees active fleet management telematics systems in South Africa growing by 12.6% and reaching 3.6 million by 2026, based on the estimated 2 million systems deployed in the country’s commercial vehicle fleet in Q4 2021.

While South Africa is a relatively mature telematics market, a notable share of the installed fleet telematics systems are comparably low-end tracking systems: light FM solutions, including SVR systems extended with basic FM features, the report points out.

“The South African fleet management market is clearly dominated by five domestic players with broad telematics portfolios, collectively representing 70% of the total number of fleet management systems in use in the country,” said Rickard Andersson, principal analyst, Berg Insight.

Berg Insight ranks Cartrack and MiX Telematics as the largest providers of fleet management solutions in South Africa. Cartrack alone has more than 500,000 active units in the country. The remaining top five companies are Tracker, Netstar, and Ctrack.

“International commercial vehicle OEMs, including Scania, Daimler, Volvo Trucks, UD Trucks, MAN and Toyota, have further all introduced fleet telematics solutions in South Africa,” said Andersson.

The South African fleet telematics market is far ahead of the rest of the continent in terms of adoption, according to the Berg research. Berg analysts report the African fleet management market beyond South Africa as often described as challenging – though certainly also promising – for several reasons: weak economic conditions, foreign exchange rate fluctuations and unstable political climates.

Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Sweden, Berg Insight is a global independent industry analyst and consulting firm, providing research, analysis and consulting services in the areas of IoT and digital technologies.