A total of 1,570 vehicles were sold in July, 1.2% less than the number of vehicles sold in June and 18.8% down compared to the number of vehicles sold in July 2015. Since January this year, 10,437 vehicles have been sold, down 19.3% from the number of vehicles sold over the comparable period last year. Vehicles sales is currently trending down on a year-on-year basis. This suggests that this trend is likely to continue going forward.
For the past 12 months, the number of vehicles sold on a cumulative basis in Namibia has been declining, posting negative since December 2015. On a 12-month cumulative basis, 18,747 vehicles were sold up to the end of July 2016, 16.5% less than the number of vehicles sold over the same period last year and 1.9% less than the cumulative number of vehicles sold in the 12 months to June this year.
On a monthly basis, total passenger vehicle sales rose by 1.6% to 653 in July. On an annual basis however, total sales of passenger vehicles declined 16.5% from 782 in July 2015. The number of commercial vehicles sold decreased on a year-to-date and year-on-year basis, down 17.5% and 20.3% respectively. The decrease in the number of commercial vehicles sold was mainly driven by a contraction in light and medium commercial vehicle sales. On a month-on-month basis, the number of commercial vehicles sold declined by 3.1% in July from 946 in the preceding month.
Toyota and Volkswagen continue to dominate the passenger vehicle segment with Toyota selling 207 (31.7%) vehicles and Volkswagen selling 158 (24.2%) of the 653 passenger vehicles sold. Toyota was the market leader in light commercial vehicle sales with 46.8% of the sales in this segment, followed by Ford with 15.4% and Isuzu in third place with 12%. Commercial vehicle sales continue to come in higher than passenger vehicle sales as has been the long term trend.
The Bottom Line
Throughout the period of 2014 all the way to mid-2015, we have seen robust growth in vehicle sales, which was driven by a strong consumer base supported by expansionary fiscal and monetary policy and real wage growth in those periods. However, recent data indicates that this is no longer the case as vehicles sales contractions have been seen. Strong growth in vehicle sales over the last couple of years has significantly increased the base on which vehicle sales growth is calculated and this has contributed to the contractions seen in vehicle sales on a 12-month cumulative basis and year-to-date basis. That said the number of vehicles sold on an annual basis is still fairly strong.
The slowdown in the number of vehicles sold has been driven by a number of factors. For instance, higher interest rates and inflation levels, reduction in government spending (directly on vehicles and otherwise), and a weaker economic climate at large have adversely impacted the demand for vehicles. In addition, the amendment to the Credit Agreement Act made on 20 July, enforcing a mandatory 10% deposit on all passenger vehicles and reducing the maximum repayment period to 54 months will further drive down vehicle sales and growth thereof going forward.