#Cars ; Kenya turns to cheaper car/goods importation to sustain the economy. - Kenya Auto Bazaar Association

Cheap Cars imported at the KPA. PHOTO | Business daily

Kenya has turned to the import of cheap and second-hand cars. The rise of cheap cars comes after the market rose for Taxi demand. The Taxi demand from Uber, Taxify, Little, ShareCab and Mondo Ride, underlining Kenya has a huge market for the taxi-hailing apps.



People have been looking for less half a million cars which will bring back the buying price in the Taxi industry. The most-traded vehicles include; Belta, Probox, Siena, Vitz, Mitsubishi cheap models.



Official data shows that the country shipped in 41,379 units of vehicles valued at Sh39.3 billion in the first half of 2017, translating to an average of Sh949,757 per unit.


This is 18 percent higher than the 34,989 units that the country imported in a similar period last year at a higher cost of Sh40.9 billion, data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows.

This puts the average of last year’s car import bill at Sh1.16 million, which is Sh210,000 more expensive than this year’s average. Dealers say increased demand for low-cost vehicles for taxi-hailing apps such as Uber has pulled down the average unit cost.

“More people are going for small budget cars like Toyota Belta,” said Charles Munyori, the secretary-general of the Kenya Auto Bazaar Association, a lobby group for second-hand car dealers.


“Increased use of services like Uber definitely has a hand in this as young people buy units they can afford for business,” he added.


The Kenya revenue authority has warned Treasury that the trend of importing cheap vehicles will cost the government due to less and poor infrastructure. The cheap importation of goods to the country rose up to 5 percent this year compared to last year.