KARACHI: Sales of cars, light commecial vehicle (LCVs), jeeps and pickups witnessed a month-on-month increase of 12 per cent to 10,515 units in April and 135pc year-on-year.

However, data released by the Pakistan Automotive Manufa­cturers Association (PAMA) on Monday showed sales were down 31pc to 79,593 units in 10MFY24.

Sunny Kumar of Topline Securities said the April sales growth was due to strong demand for different variants of Pak Suzuki Motor Company Ltd (PSMCL) led by Suzuki Alto 660cc whose sales went up by 64pc to 4,786 units in April, which is the highest sales recorded after 15 months.

On a YoY basis, he attributed the significant jump in total car sales to a low base from last year amid plant shutdowns.

Indus Motor Company (IMC) sales were up 21pc month-on-month to 2,065 units, while Hyundai Nishat Motor saw an 18pc increase to 686 units in April.

Only Honda Atlas Cars Ltd (HACL) suffered a fall of 54pc MoM to 1,003 units in April. On YoY basis, HACL posted a significant growth of 385pc YoY due to the low base effect, as the company shut down its plant during the same period last year.

Sazgar Engineering’s Havel variant sales stood at 544 units, up by eight per cent MoM and 8.9pc YoY in April.

Mr Kumar said the drop in car, LCV, jeep, and pick-up sales during 10MFY24 was primarily due to escalating car prices, expensive auto financing, and consumers’ low purchasing power.

Tractor sales (Fiat and Massey Ferguson) posted a healthy growth of 57pc during July-April FY24 to 38,282 from 24,444 in the same period last fiscal, signaling improving agriculture indicators. Sales during April 2024 sales plummeted by 33pc to 3,083 units from 4,608 in March. However, April was also four per cent lower than April 2023 sales of 3,211 units.

Auto sector expert Mashood Ali Khan said the truck and bus segments were in crisis. Pakistan should have used locally assembled buses in the public transport system instead of importing Chinese buses. The next year will also be challenging for the bus makers as more imported buses will hit the roads.

He said that due to low truck and bus volumes, several small- and medium-sized parts makers have closed down.

Mashood said the car segment is unlikely to achieve a sales volume of 100,000 plus units this year despite some improvement in sales and no plant shutdown in April. “Car sales will rise if the interest rate slips to a single digit,” he said, adding that prices of locally made vehicles are still high. Recently, some assemblers made a steep price drop in specific models, but it was a short-term approach.

He urged the government to offer incentives to assemblers to boost localization so that prices could come down. Bus sales fell by 21pc in April to 31 units MoM while it went up by 16pc YoY. During 10MFY24, sales plunged by 35pc to 371 units from 573 in the same period last fiscal year.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2024