KARACHI (National Times)- Car sales dropped to the lowest in more than two years as rising prices suppressed demand and import curbs hurt production even before the full impact of the devastating floods are factored in.<\/p>\n
Sales fell 50 percent to 8,980 units in August from a year ago, according to data released by Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association on Tuesday. That\u2019s the lowest since June 2020 when 7,325 units had been sold during the coronavirus pandemic. Sales fell to 10,378 units in July.<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s economic growth is slowing as one of the region\u2019s highest inflation rates — and higher borrowing costs — erode demand and a 30 percent drop in the rupee makes the import of key automobile parts more expensive. The industry is also hit by import restrictions authorities have introduced to control the trade deficit.<\/p>\n
Toyota Motor Corp.\u2019s Pakistan unit, Indus Motors Co., plans to shut its plant for two weeks of a second successive month while Suzuki Motor Corp.\u2019s local unit is also shut because of shortage of imported parts. The two companies are the largest car assemblers in Pakistan and sell 85 percent of all cars in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
Overall car sales can drop by more than 25 percent in the fiscal year started July, according to Wasil Zaman, an analyst at JS Global Capital Ltd.<\/p>\n
Recovery may be hurt by catastrophic floods that inundated about a third of the country in recent weeks, killing about 1,400 people and causing losses worth about $30 billion.<\/p>\n
Brokerage Topline Securities said car sales (including sales of Non-PAMA members) clocked in at 14,000 units down 2 percent month-on-month primarily due to unavailability of CKD parts which led to non-production days by auto manufactures.<\/p>\n
Automakers were allowed to import only 50 percent of their average imports over the last 4 months in Jul-2022 in order to save foreign exchange reserve. The quota has increased to 60 percent for August 2022 and 70 percent for September 2022.<\/p>\n
The brokerage house reported that auto sales are also down by 46 percent year-on-year amid escalating car prices, expensive auto financing, and low purchasing power of consumers. \u201cThis takes 2MFY23 car sales to 23,498 units down 50 percent year-on-year from 46,656 units in 2MFY22.\u201d<\/p>\n
PSMC sales was down 41 percent month-on-month to 3,954 units in August 2022 due to plant closure amid unavailability of CKD parts. Honda Atlas Car recorded decline of 29 percent month-on-month to 1,809 units in August 2022 led by decline in sales of City & Civic by 40 percent month-on-month.<\/p>\n
Indus Motors posted an increase of 63 percent month-on-month to 3,876 units in August 2022 from 2,375 units in July 2022. Interestingly, Hyundai sales increased to 1,929 units in August 2022 as compared to 201 units in July 2022 led by uptick in Tuscon sales primarily due to low base.<\/p>\n
Amongst Tractors, Millat Tractors recorded increase of 153 percent month-on-month and 27 percent year-on-year to 2,556 units. Al Ghazi Tractors recorded sales of 1,420 units, up 14 percent month-on-month and 9 percent year-on-year.<\/p>\n
Bike sales were up by 5 percent month-on-month while down 32 percent year-on-year in August 2022. Atlas Honda recorded sales of 85,000 units up 6 percent month-on-month while down 15 percent year-on-year.<\/p>\n
Trucks and buses sales were up 24 percent month-on-month while down 43 percent year-on-year to 341 units in August primarily due to drop in transportation activities amid floods and slowdown in overall economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KARACHI (National Times)- Car sales dropped to the lowest in more than two years as rising prices suppressed demand and import curbs hurt production even before the full impact of the devastating floods are factored in. Sales fell 50 percent to 8,980 units in August from a year ago, according to data released by Pakistan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n