Vehicle sales decrease further in July
The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa released Namibia’s vehicle sale statistics, showing 800 new vehicles were sold in July, a 5.1% decrease from the 843 sold in June.
This brings the total number of vehicle sales in 2021 to 5,693. Despite this monthly drop, over the past 12 months total vehicle sales have grown by 8.9% to 9,119 with passenger and light commercial vehicles continuing to make up the bulk of the sales.
On a year-on-year basis, new vehicle sales rose 19.4% in July. Simonis Storm Securities economist, Theo Klein, said the yearly increase in vehicle sales during July 2021 is mainly driven by increased purchases of passenger and light commercial vehicles.
Year-to-date passenger vehicle sales have increased by 51.5%, as 1,760 vehicles were sold by this time last July compared to the 2,666 figure this year. The sale of light commercial vehicles increased by 13.6% from June, the sales of medium and heavy commercial vehicles both declined on a month-on-month basis.
“Locally, certain dealers have a backlog of vehicles ready to be sold to customers. Supply shortages of vehicles arise due to fewer staff being able to work at global manufacturing and assembly plants. Also, electronic chips used in the manufacturing of cars are increasingly being used in the manufacturing of alternative electronic products, this also weighs on production of vehicle units,” Klein said.
IJG Research noted that 2021 remains on track to be the second worst year for vehicle sales in the past decade, adding that by this time in 2019, itself a below par year for vehicle sales over the last 10 years, 6,227 new vehicles were sold, in 2021 that number is only 5,693.
“Naturally this is an improvement on 2020’s sales figures (4,186 total) but as noted earlier, that is not difficult to accomplish. More tellingly, sales figures for new passenger and commercial vehicles are below pre-pandemic averages, showing that both individual and business spending remains depressed. As vehicle sales and most other high-frequency data is indicating, the economic recovery has a long way yet to go,” IJG stated.
