PETALING JAYA: Services sector revenue registered growth of 6.6% year-on year in the fourth quarter of 2023 to RM591.4 billion according to Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM).

Chief Statistician Malaysia Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the growth of 6.6% was contributed by favourable performance in all segments of the services sector with significant increase recorded in wholesale & retail trade, food & beverages and accommodation segment which rose RM25.1 billion to reach RM450.9 billion.

This was followed by information & communication and transportation & storage segment (+RM6.1 billion; 8.1%), professional, real estate and administrative & support service segment (+RM3.1 billion; 8.8%), and private health, private education, arts, entertainment & recreation and personal services and other activities segment (+RM2.3 billion; 12.3%).

Looking at analysis by quarter-on-quarter comparison, total revenue for services sector posted an increase of 1.3% (+RM7.3 billion) as compared to the third quarter of 2023. The growth was also propelled by wholesale & retail trade, food & beverages, and accommodation segment, which grew 1.0% (+RM4.3 billion).

This was followed by information & communication and transportation & storage segment (+RM1.3 billion; 1.6%), professional, real estate and administrative & support service segment (+RM1.1 billion; 3.0%), and private health, private education, arts, entertainment & recreation and personal services and other activities segment (+RM0.6 billion; 3.2%).

Mohd Uzir explained that the total revenue of the service sector in 2023 was RM2.3 trillion, which is an increase of 8.4% as against to the previous year (2022: RM2.1 trillion). This performance was spurred by the wholesale & retail trade, transportation & storage and information & communication sub-sectors which increased by 7.7% (+RM119.1 billion), 15.8% (+RM20.4 billion) and 5.3% (+RM8.6 billion), respectively compared to 2022.

However, Mohd Uzir said there are sub-sectors that have not yet surpassed the pre-pandemic (2019) revenue value which were food & beverage (-1.4%), arts, entertainment & recreation (-24.4%), and personal services and other activities (-23.9%). This was due to the several activities related to tourism industry still in the recovery phase after the opening of international borders starting April 12022 and has not yet surpassed pre-pandemic levels.

In terms of e-commerce income, he said, “It recorded RM291.9 billion, grew 1.7% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2023. For quarter-on-quarter comparison, income of e-commerce increased marginally by 0.8%. In 2023, the overall value of e-commerce income grew 4.9% as against last year to record a value of RM1.2 trillion.”

Mohd Uzir added, “The number of persons engaged in this sector was 4.4 million persons, increased 79.3 thousand persons, or 1.8% year-on-year. The rise was driven by wholesale & retail trade sub-sector with an increase of 40.4 thousand persons, or 2.1%, followed by the transportation & storage sub-sector (+15.1 thousand persons; 4.2%). For quarter-on-quarter, the number of persons engaged grew by 0.5%, which amounted to 23.4 thousand persons.”

Meanwhile, salaries and wages paid registered an increase of RM1 billion, or 3.3% year-on-year. The increment was attributed to wholesale & retail trade and transportation & storage sub-sectors which rose RM0.4 billion (+2.5%) and RM0.2 billion (+5.6%), respectively. For quarter-on-quarter comparison, salaries and wages grew 0.8% to register RM32 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023.