New vehicle sales end year on negative note as December 2019 shows decline
The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers South Africa released Namibia’s new vehicle sales numbers for December 2019, which shows that the total vehicle sales declined by 18.4% to 714 units.
The annual aggregate number of vehicle sales registered a decline of 12.7% to 10 389 units in 2019, marking the 5th consecutive decline in annual sales, the report noted. In addition, vehicle sales recorded the lowest units in a month since 711 units in February 2006.
According to the report, new vehicle sales ended the year on a negative note, especially for passenger and light commercial vehicles. Passenger vehicles and light commercial vehicles which make up 93% of total vehicle sales recorded a decline of 10.9% and 17.1% to 4 538 units and 5 101 units, respectively, in 2019.
Sales of medium and heavy commercial vehicles had improved, increasing by 9% and 13.7%, respectively, in 2019. According to Simonis Storms Securities, the uptick in the medium and heavy commercial vehicles can be attributed to the increase in trucks to the uptick in construction activities in 2019.
“These construction activities include property and commercial construction coupled with Road construction. The new Scania trucks hugely contributed to the increase in heavy commercial vehicles and many customers were making replacements as it is seen as a fuel cost effective truck,” Indileni Nanghonga, junior analyst at Simonis Storms said.
Nanghonga furthermore said that the low economic environment and lack of consumer demand does not give hope for a recovery in the motor vehicle industry yet.
“We expect annual vehicle sales to decrease by a smaller margin of 2.8%, in other words, 10 100 units in 2020. The assumption is based on continuous low economic growth, low disposable income and lower spending which are expected to prevail in 2020,” she noted.
