CAR SALES REV UP TO A ROAR SA STATISTICS
THE sale of motor vehicles and related products displayed a roaring year-on-year performance of 8.6% for May.
The results that Statistics SA released yesterday indicated that the sector’s total sales income between the period March and May increased by 9.7% to R129billion compared to last year’s R117-billion.
The sales of new motor vehicles out-performed other divisions.
“The highest annual growth rates were recorded for new vehicle sales, which rose by 13.9%, used vehicle sales 10.2%, and while the sale of fuel increased by 6.6%,” read the report.
The new car sales generated R38-billion in revenue compared to last year’s R33.4-billion, while used vehicles raked in R20-billion compared to last year’s R18-billion.
Revenue generated by workshops climbed to R8-billion from R7.1-billion, while income from the sales of accessories amounted to R20.3-billion compared to 2012’s R19.6-billion.
Convenience stores showed a mute growth of 4.6% to R5.3-billion compared to last year’s R5.1-billion.
Nedbank Capital economist Mohammed Nalla said the figures showed that the pace of growth was starting to moderate.
Nalla said one reason the new car sales were high could be due to the fact that during the recession many households delayed the purchasing of new cars for about three years.
“Households could be wanting to replace their old cars with new ones, however, if you look deeper into the figures you would find that households are buying cars that are smaller, cheaper cars that cost around R150 000 instead of cars that cost about R300 000,” he said.
Nalla said some in the emerging black middle class bought new cars because they had never owned one before. –