Sale of New Cars Closes the Year Lowest in Eight Years

The year 2017 is likely to close in the red as far as the sale of the new cars is concerned with the industry having sold only about 11,000 units.

According to players in the sector, the business appears to have been hard hit with the tough economic environment that engulfed the country amid unending political uncertainty that led to many people shunning away from investing in new automobiles.

Data from the Kenya Motor Industry indicated that monthly orders for new vehicles stood at 844 this year with the total sales being at 10,121 units in the 11 month period through the month of November.

In 2016, a total of 13,869 units were sold and with only 11,000 units likely to be sold this year, a 20 percent drop will be recorded. The sales in 2016 too were lower than those in 2015 by 30.5 percent.

KMI chairperson Rita Kavashe, who is also the chief executive of Isuzu East Africa, recently told the Business Daily that the industry expected to close the year with sales of 10,700 units.

“Industry sales have been affected by the political uncertainty and the capping of interest rates that has particularly made it difficult for SMEs to get financing,” she said.

Kenya’s economy appears to have been generally hit by the continuing political uncertainty in the country.

According to KEPSA, the private sector lost more than 700 billion shillings during the four months that the country was deep into politics with the whole economy has lost approximately 1.4 trillion shillings.