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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Auto sales remain flat at 83,201 units in four months

By Our Correspondent
November 13, 2018

KARACHI: Sales of cars, jeeps and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) remained almost flat at 83,201 during the first four months of the current fiscal year of 2018/19 as frequent price hikes and tax restriction stifled auto demand, a brokerage reported on Monday.

Sales of cars, jeeps and LCVs were recorded at 83,810 units in the corresponding period a year earlier. In October, auto sales grew six percent year-on-year to 24,850 units. “Sales were also up 28 percent month-on-month due to higher number of working days in October compared to September,” auto analyst Daniyal Adil at Topline Securities said.

“Moreover, price hike anticipation owing to currency devaluation and higher input costs may have also encouraged customers to get into early purchase.” Auto demand will continue to remain sluggish due to deteriorating economic environment, multiple price hikes since December last year and impact of law requiring car owners to be tax filers. Government bounds car buyers to file tax returns prior to own vehicles.

“Slowdown in demand would be more apparent post-December,” Adil said. “The increase in automobile prices due to latest round of rupee depreciation also gives credence to our forecasts of volumetric decline in coming months as cars become more expensive.”

Indus Motors led the growth chart with its sales up 25 percent year-on-year in October. Similarly, sales increased 30 percent month-on-month, while its sales were up eight percent in the four-month period. Indus recorded the second highest monthly sales of 6,409 units in October in its operational history. The company recorded its highest ever monthly sales of 6,415 units in January 2015.

In October, Honda depicted sales growth of 11 percent year-on-year and the company exhibited volumetric growth of 11 percent month-on-month, while its sales rose eight percent in 4MFY19.

Pak Suzuki Motor Company continued to face downward trend on a yearly basis as its sales declined two percent year-on-year in October. Sales were up 36 percent month-on-month in the previous month. In 4MFY19, sales were down eight percent.

Sales growth was led by Cultus, Swift, and Ravi variants by 65, 45 and 13 percent year-on-year, respectively, in October. Mehran, Bolan and Wagon-R recorded sales contraction of 24, 22 and four percent year-on-year, respectively.

Sales of motorbikes and three-wheelers were recorded at 1.167 million units in the July-October period compared to 1.154 million units in the corresponding period a year earlier. In October, sales of motorbikes and three-wheelers increased 13 percent year-on-year and eight percent month-on-month to 158,187 units.

Tractor sales fell eight percent year-on-year to 20,079 units in the July-October period. Sales of tractors, however, increased five percent year-on-year and nine percent month-on-month to 6,348 units in October.

In July-October, sales of trucks and buses decreased 16 percent year-on-year to 2,663 units. In October, sales of trucks and buses fell 10 percent year-on-year, but they rose 12 percent month-on-month to 658 units.