Economic advisory firm Simonis Storm (SS) has warned that the shortage of global chip (semiconducter) will impact Namibia’s vehicle sales growth.
This comes as global car manufacturers are struggling to find enough microprocessors resulting in a cut in global production targets, a position which is expected to affect vehicle imports into Namibia and stock delivery of local vehicles.
“This means that vehicle imports into Namibia and stock delivery to local vehicles will continue to be constrained and keep a limit on vehicle sales growth. The local market can still be characterised by demand exceeding supply, indicating that vehicle sales would be higher in the absence of global vehicle manufacturing limitations,” SS Economist Theo Klein said.
According to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers South Africa (NAAMSA) figures, a total of 705 vehicles were sold during the month of January 2022, a 4% decrease when compared to 734 cars sold in December 2021 and a marginal 1.7 % increase from 693 sold a year ago.
Light vehicle sales declined by 11.6% from 301 units in January 2021 to 266 in January 2022, with medium commercial vehicles registering the biggest drop in sales of 44.4% during the period under review , followed by heavy vehicles sales which declined by 21.1%.
Passenger vehicles sales for January 2022, however, increased by 14.1% with 404 units sold compared to 354 units the same period last year.
In 2021, 9 428 brand new vehicles were sold in the country, representing a 23.9% annual increase compared to 7 612 sold in 2020.
Of the 9 428 new vehicles sold during 2021, 4 484 were passenger vehicles, 4 178 were light commercial vehicles, and 766 were medium and heavy commercial vehicles.
