KARACHI: Except slight fall in bus sales, the entire auto sector showed positive trend led by tractors, cars, trucks, etc mainly in the first five months of this fiscal year.

Despite high prices, prospective buyers lifted high engine power cars more thus pushing up its overall sales to 26,214 units in July-November 2014 as compared to 22,821 units in same period last fiscal. Overall sales got a boost because of rising sales of new Toyota Corolla to 16,847 units from 11,341 units.

Consumers’ focus towards Corolla caused drop in Honda Civic and Honda City sales to 2,853 and 5,035 units from 3,982 and 5,352 units.

Sales of Suzuki Swift remained depressing at 1,460 units as compared to 2,085 units. Pak Suzuki Motor Company Limited (PSMCL) after closing down production of Liana was selling built up stocks and only 19 units of Liana were sold as compared to 61 units.

In 800cc and below, Suzuki Mehran sales fell to 10,604 units from 11,722 units while Bolan sales went up to 5,414 from 5,252 units, figures released by Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) revealed.

In 1,000cc it seems that Pak Suzuki Motor Company is facing difficulty due to depressing sales of Suzuki Wagon R.

In July 2014 Wagon R sales stood at 364 units and after unstable journey from August to September, the sales dropped to 222 units in November 2014. Suzuki Cultus sales also plunged to 5,425 units in July-November 2014 from 7,871 units in July-November 2013.

Truck sales remained brisk on the back of steady movement of goods in view of paltry growth in large scale manufacturing (LSM) of various items followed by huge arrival of imported goods and commodities.

Total truck sales swelled to 1,315 units from 742 in which share of Hino stood at 471 units as compared to 335 units. Nissan, Master and Isuzu sales also soared to 239, 283 and 322 units as compared to 119, 158 and 130 units in July-November 2013.

Overall bus sales remained a bit low at 210 units as compared to 232 units in which Hino bus sales fell to 163 from 192 units. PAMA figures showed zero production and sale figures of Nissan buses. Sale of Isuzu buses came down to 19 units from 31 units.

Agriculture sector appears to have shown good prospects which pushed overall tractor sales to 18,457 units from 12,758 units.

Fiat, Massey Ferguson and Orient IMT Tractor sold 6,953, 11,247 and 257 units in July-November 2014 as compared to 5,338, 7,268 and 152 units respectively in same period last year.

Cut in general sales tax (GST) to 16 per cent from 10pc in Federal Budget 2014-2015 and increased agri credit loan target provided huge support to tractor sales.

Based on better future sales scenario, the import of completely knocked down (CKD) kits of heavy vehicles and cars, increased to $57 million and $76.5m in July-November 2014 respectively from $39 and $63m in same period last fiscal.

In bike segment, sale of Honda, DYL Motorcycles and Suzuki bikes posted negative sales to 247,149, 2,741 and 9,265 units as compared 265,909, 8,506 and 9,971 units. Qingqi and Sazgar Three Wheeler sales improved to 10,957 and 5,021 units from 9,229 and 4,606 units.

In LCVs, vans and jeeps, Toyota Fortuner sales went up to 340 from 175 units while Sigma Defender sales dipped to 162 from 189 units. Suzuki Ravi sales stood at 5,024 units as compared to 4,520 units while Toyota Hilux sales fell to 1,599 from 1,681 units.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2014