Executive summary
- New vehicle sales declined to 996 vehicles for October 2022 from 1018 vehicles sold in September 2022. See figure 1.
- The drop in new vehicle sales for October 2022 was mainly driven by low sales of passenger vehicles
- New passenger vehicle sales declined by 8% in relation to the vehicles sold in September 2022
- New light commercial vehicle sales increased by 12% when compared to vehicles sold in September 2022
- A total of 11128 vehicles were sold between October 2021 and October 2022 an improvement from 9885 vehicles sold between October 2020 and October 2021
Analysis
- On an annual basis, new vehicle sales increased by 39.5%, (See figure 2). This came as a result of improved consumer and business confidence
- Light commercial vehicle sales increased to 460 from 448 vehicles sold in September 2022. This could have been influenced by improved commercial activities.
- Passenger vehicle sales decreased to 466 from 505. The decline could have been driven by the lack of consumer confidence to take up credit to purchase new vehicles due to the high cost of borrowing. The high cost of borrowing impedes consumers’ and businesses’ confidence to take up loans to purchase new vehicles.
- Extra heavy commercial vehicle sales increased to 33 from 28 vehicles sold in September 2022 as a consequence of the high demand for heavy goods transportation services
Figure 1: Monthly Vehicle Sales (October 2021 – October 2022), Namibia
Figure 2: Year on Year Vehicle sales growth (October 2021- October 2022), Namibia
Outlook
- The current monetary policy tightening continues to negatively influence the demand for credit for both households and businesses, hence businesses and consumers are likely to remain cautious in making credit decisions to buy new vehicles in the short to medium term.
- We expect new vehicle sales for November 2022 to decline further.