Auto sales down 4pc in July-Nov

KARACHI: Auto sales fell four percent to 100,643 units in the first five months of the current fiscal year of 2018/19 as demand from ride-hailing services tapered off during the period, a brokerage reported on Tuesday.

Auto sales stood at 104,901 units in the July-November period of the last fiscal year.

“It was the first such decline after a period of five years due to normalising for taxi scheme,” analyst Daniyal Adil at Topline Securities said.

Auto sales steeply declined 17 percent year-on-year to 17,442 units in November.

“The volumetric decline is much anticipated given deteriorating economy, law barring tax non-filers from purchasing cars and multiple price hikes in the past 12 months,” Adil added.

Auto sales also decreased 30 percent month-on-month in November “primarily due to high base effect of last month as well as seasonal slowdown”.

Indus Motors was the only company to report year-on-year growth in volumes, up by two percent in November over the corresponding month a year earlier.

The company’s car sales fell 15 percent month-on-month, while its sales are up seven percent year-on-year.

Honda sales fell 23 percent year-on-year and 31 percent month-on-month, while sales rose two percent in the July-November period.

“The fall in sales was led by 76 percent lower BR-V sales, while sales of City and Civic units on cumulative basis fell only two percent year-on-year,” Adil said.

Pak Suzuki Motor Company performed the worst with 25 percent year-on-year decline in volumetric sales in November.

“Decline in sales was led by 44 percent, 39 percent and 28 percent decline in Mehran, Bolan and Ravi variants, respectively while the only variant to record growth was Cultus up 13 percent year-on-year,” the analyst added.