Malaysia’s Wholesale And Retail Trade Grew 6.3% In April To RM136 Billion

Malaysia’s Wholesale & Retail Trade recorded a monthly sales value of RM136.0 billion, which grew 6.3 % year-on-year in April 2023, this was reported by DOSM in its latest data release.

The report also presents statistics on sales value and volume index of Wholesale & Retail Trade by sub-sector. According to DOSM, the increase of 6.3 % for Wholesale & Retail Trade was attributed to the Retail Trade sub-sector, which increased 12.9 % or RM6.9 billion to register RM60.5 billion. Wholesale Trade also expanded by registering 3.2 % or RM1.9 billion to RM60.9 billion. However, Motor Vehicles declined -5.1 % to RM14.6 billion. For month-on-month comparison, the sales value of Wholesale & Retail Trade inched down -1.8 %, caused by a fall in Motor Vehicles and Wholesale Trade sub-sectors of -19.8 % and -1.1 %, respectively.

Looking at the performance across sub-sectors, the Retail Trade sub-sector growth of 12.9 % in April 2023 was supported by Retail Sales in Non-specialised Stores which elevated 18.0 % or RM3.6 billion to RM23.4 billion. Other groups in this sub-sector also recorded positive growth namely Retail Sales in Specialised Stores 17.4 %, Retail Sales of
Automotive Fuels 19.6 %, Retail Sales of Food, Beverages & Tobacco 15.1 %, Retail Sales of Household Goods 1.5 %, Retail Sales Not in Stores, Stalls or Market 8.9 %, and Retail Sales in Stalls & Market 13.1 %. For month-on-month comparison, sales of this sub-sector went up 3.1 %.

Commenting further on Wholesale Trade sub-sector, the increase of 3.2 % was attributed to the Wholesale of Food, Beverages & Tobacco which rose RM0.9 billion or 7.7 % to RM12.1 billion. This was followed by the Wholesale of Household Goods 5.4 %, Wholesale of Agricultural Raw Materials & Live Animals 5.1 %, Non-specialised Wholesale Trade 8.5 %, Wholesale of Machinery, Equipment & Supplies 2.7 %, and Wholesale on a Fee & Contract Basis 8.0 %. On the other hand, for monthly comparison, Wholesale Trade slipped -1.1 %, mainly caused by Wholesale of Food, Beverages & Tobacco and Wholesale of Household Goods which decreased -2.7 % and -1.7 %, respectively.

DOSM also informed that the -5.1 % decrease in the Motor Vehicles sub-sector this month was dragged down by Sales of Motor Vehicles which slumped -17.3 % or RM1.4 billion to RM6.8 billion. This was followed by Sales, Maintenance & Repair of Motorcycles which shrank -29.8 %. For monthly comparison, this sub-sector also recorded a negative growth of -19.8 %, contributed by a decrease in Sales of Motor Vehicles by -33.5 %.

In terms of volume index, Wholesale & Retail Trade for April 2023 registered a year-on-year growth of 4.7 %. DOSM also added that the expansion was attributed to Retail Trade and Wholesale Trade with 10.0 % and 3.4 %, respectively. For seasonally adjusted volume index, it increased 6.5 % month-on-month