South Africa’s online retail market has expanded rapidly, with industry data showing the online retail market projected to pass R130 billion in 2025. That same research points to online retail’s share of total retail rising toward 10% by 2026. As e-commerce and convenience delivery scale, two-wheelers are becoming more central to last-mile operating models.

“The continued expansion in South Africa’s on-demand delivery segment, including category expansion beyond food into high-frequency convenience retail, is in turn driving demand for agile, lower-cost delivery mobility. South Africa is following a pattern we’ve seen in other growth markets: two-wheelers move from being viewed as discretionary transport to becoming core economic infrastructure for commuting and income mobility,” says Rahul Nayak, Senior Vice President, TVS Motor Company.

Robin van Rensburg, Managing Director of The Nexus Collective, adds that for 2-wheeler brands in this sector, scale alone is no longer enough. Reliability, service depth, parts availability, and rider economics are what determine long-term relevance and reliability in a mobility market set for rapid growth.

“Local demand is being shaped by three converging realities - urban congestion pressure where commuters and working riders need lower-cost, time-efficient movement in congested corridors; income-linked mobility that is seeing delivery and micro-entrepreneurship ecosystems expanding the use-case for two-wheelers as productive assets; and affordability, where both individual riders and fleet owners are prioritising total cost of ownership, uptime, and service responsiveness,” explains van Rensburg.

South Africa’s labour context also reinforces the mobility shift.

“In a country with persistently high unemployment, two-wheelers can serve as practical enablers of economic participation for independent contractors and small operators – from commercial delivery, township and urban micro-logistics and last-mile commutes to entrepreneurship-led mobility use cases. When mobility becomes more accessible and affordable, it unlocks business formation, income generation, and inclusive growth,” says van Rensburg.

Globally, the pattern is consistent. In India - one of the most mature two-wheeler ecosystems - SIAM reported the segment crossing 20.5 million units in 2025, underscoring how two-wheelers become foundational in high-density, cost-sensitive mobility markets. In African peer contexts such as Kenya, two-wheelers are deeply integrated into urban mobility and livelihood systems.

For South Africa, TVS believes the market opportunity is not only product-led, but ecosystem-led. That means investing in retail and aftersales networks, rider support, technician capability, and fleet partnerships that reduce downtime and improve operating economics.

“As South Africa’s mobility mix evolves, two-wheelers will play a larger role in how people commute, earn, and access opportunity, mirroring the trajectory already visible across comparable urbanising markets,” concludes van Rensburg.