Malaysia's online retail sales surges 28.9 pct in April 2020 - DoSM
Malaysia’s online retail sales surged 28.9 percent in April 2020, although the total sales value of wholesale and retail trade dropped 36.6 percent as compared with the same month a year earlier.
In a statement today, the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM) said the jump in online retail sales portrayed the expansion of e-commerce activities in the country.
Elaborating the decline of wholesale and retail trade’s sales value...
Malaysia’s online retail sales surged 28.9 percent in April 2020, although the total sales value of wholesale and retail trade dropped 36.6 percent as compared with the same month a year earlier.
In a statement today, the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM) said the jump in online retail sales portrayed the expansion of e-commerce activities in the country.
Elaborating the decline of wholesale and retail trade’s sales value in April 2020, chief statistician Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the steepest fall was recorded by motor vehicles segment which dipped 93.2 percent, mostly due to a steep drop of 93.7 percent in sales of motor vehicles.
“During the movement control order (MCO), car dealerships centres and showrooms were not allowed to operate, thus affected the sales of vehicles to customers,” he said.
Mohd Uzir said other industries in this sub-sector also suffered a significant drop in April 2020, notably sales of parts and accessories (-91.4 percent), repair and maintenance (-93.6 percent) and sales, repair and sales of parts and accessories of motorcycles (-94.9 percent).
On the retail trade for April 2020, he said, sales fell 32.4 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y), as the implementation of MCO has resulted in negative growth in most of the retail activities.
On wholesale trade, sales also registered a 26.3 percent decline y-o-y in April 2020, impacted by the disruption in the overall supply and demand chain, both domestically and globally due to Covid-19.
“However, industries related to food such as wholesale of food, beverages and tobacco, as well as wholesale of agricultural raw materials and live animals posted a marginal positive growth,” he added.
On month-on-month comparison, the wholesale and retail trade’s sales value in April 2020 contracted to 35.2 percent, said Mohd Uzir.
In terms of volume index, he said wholesale and retail trade fell 38.6 percent in April 2020 against the corresponding month of the previous year.
He pointed out that the decline was attributed by motor vehicles which registered a negative year-on-year growth of 93.6 percent.
“Retail trade and wholesale trade volume index also posted negative growth of 36.0 percent and 27.5 percent respectively in April 2020,” he said.
As for seasonally adjusted volume index, the retail trade and wholesale trade volume index contracted to 33.6 percent in April 2020 as compared to March 2020.
Moving forward, Mohd Uzir expected both sales and volume index of the retail trade and wholesale to see better performance due to the government's partial lifting of the nationwide lockdown by allowing most economic sectors to return to full operation, under the conditional MCO started from May 4 to Aug 31, 2020.
“Sales is expected to rise due to the delayed purchase from April 2020, while the shift in consumer behaviour towards digitalised and more convenient method of purchasing and payment will likely to continue and will act as a catalyst for rapid growth in retail sales,” he said.
Meanwhile, the manufacturing sales plunged 33.0 percent year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM75.8 billion in April 2020 compared to RM113.1 billion reported a year ago.
Mohd Uzir said month-on-month, the sector’s sales value went down by 31.2 percent (RM34.3 billion), while in seasonally adjusted terms, the sales value registered a decrease of 29.5 percent.
“The year-on-year decline in sales value in April 2020 was due to the decrease in transport equipment and other manufactures products (-69.5 percent), non-metallic mineral products, basic metal and fabricated metal products (-67.5 percent) and electrical and electronic products (-39.6 per cent),” he said, attributing the decline to the closure of business operations during the MCO .
Under normal conditions, the sales value of the manufacturing sector would have grown by an estimated 6.9 percent, he said.
He added that the non-essential services industry also registered a significant decline in growth, as the capacity utilisation of factories fell below 50 percent.
Meanwhile, the total number of employees engaged in the manufacturing sector in April 2020 decreased by 3.2 percent y-o-y to 2,169,473 persons.
The report also stated that salaries and wages paid in April 2020 amounted to RM6.8 billion, a decrease of 6.2 percent y-o-y or RM448.7 million.
The sales value per employee also declined by 30.8 percent y-o-y to RM34,918, while the average salaries and wages per employee were RM3,146 during the month.
- Bernama
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