Namibian individuals and entities bought 9 428 brand new vehicles in 2021, representing a 23.9% annual increase compared to 7 612 sold in 2020, statistics from the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers South Africa (NAAMSA) show.
The figure is, however, still below that 10 415 vehicles sold in 2019 before the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic.
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.
In terms of market share, Toyota and Volkswagen continue to dominate the local market and accounted for 34.9% and 13.7% of total vehicles sold last year, respectively.
Comparing market shares of annual sales, Nissan replaced Ford as the third largest brand with 6.2% of total sales in 2021 and Ford moved down to the fourth largest at 6.1%.
KIA replaced Mercedes as the fifth largest brand, with 4.6% of total sales in 2021.
According to NAAMSA, these top five brands accounted for 65.7% of total vehicles sold in 2021.
Motor car prices have on average increased by 8.8% y/y in 2021 compared to 2020, with average spare part prices having increased by 6.4% y/y in 2021 and service and repair charges increasing by 4.6% y/y in 2021.
This comes as a total of 734 vehicles were sold during the month of December 2021, a decline from 755 units sold in November and 874 sold over the same period last year.
Vehicle sales increased by 4.3% y/y and decreased by 2.8% m/m in December 2021.
“Medium-commercial vehicles saw the largest annual increase, however total vehicle sales continue to be dominated by passenger (49% of total sales) and light-commercial vehicles (43% of total sales),” NAAMSA said.
Meanwhile, Simonis Storm has predicted that COVID-19 variant infections amongst plant workers and lockdown rules remain a risk to production in 2022.
“Another risk remains that automakers are not the biggest buyers of chips, so that chips are sold to alternative high selling devices such as smartphones, servers, and high-performance computing. The global automotive industry accounts for about 10% of global semiconductor sales,” Simonis Storm Economist Theo Klein said.
“Taking the above into account, we believe imports of vehicles into Namibia will remain challenging for most of 2022. This will be as a result of ongoing global production challenges discussed above. In addition, installment credit extension from commercial banks is another constraint on local vehicle sales as local dealers have alluded to losing numerous deals due to customers not obtaining financing from banks. This is evidenced by installment and leasing credit contracting by -4.6% y/y and -0.3% y/y for businesses and households in 2021.”
IJG said , “While new vehicle sales for the year have rebounded from the dismal figures seen in 2020, 2021 was still the second-worst year for vehicle sales in the past decade. The recovery has predominantly been driven by a rebound in passenger vehicle sales, with total commercial vehicle sales still lagging well behind 2019 levels. The strong increase in heavy commercial vehicle sales is however welcome news as it suggests that a few companies and mines upgraded their fleets indicating business optimism. With there being few signs that 2022 will see significant economic growth, we expect new vehicle sales figures to remain more or less in line with 2021’s.”
Before the coronavirus pandemic outbreak, 1 196 vehicles were sold monthly on average compared to 705 vehicles being sold monthly.
