The sale of locally-manufactured cars, including LCVs, Vans and Jeeps, has decreased to 70,351 units during 7MFY13 compared to 96,927 unit in the corresponding period of last year. “The plunge in the sales is on account of huge import of used imported CBU’s prior to restriction on imports, termination of Non EURO-II compliant cars (‘Alto’ and ‘Coure’) and absence of taxi scheme,” viewed Topline analyst Zeeshan Afzal. A monthly account, however, shows that the sale of locally-manufactured cars improved to 12,811 units in Jan’13, up 52pc versus 8,448 units in Dec’12. “We attribute increase in sales to ‘New Model’ phenomenon and declining sales of imported used CBU’s,” said Afzal. Amongst individual companies, Pak Suzuki (PSMC) sales declined by 31 percent to 42,328 units during 7MFY13 as compared to 60,159 units last year. On monthly basis, the PSMC’s sales picked up to 7,004 units by 17 percent compared to 5,987 units in Dec’12 on account of increased sales of cargo vehicles ‘Cultus’ and ‘Mehran’. During 7MFY13, Indus Motors (INDU) sales came down by 38 percent to 18,259 units compared to 29,462 units in 7MFY12. “The decline in sales is primarily contributed by 37 percent decline in ‘Corolla’ sales to 15,725 units in 7MFY13 and termination of ‘Coure’,” said the analyst. However, on month-on-month, the sale of INDU jumped to 3,560 units in Jan’13, up 127 percent to 1,571 units in Dec’12 primarily because of what the analyst said ‘New Year’ phenomenon. “With the import restriction going into effect, we foresee decent growth in local car sales in coming months, with the notable recovery in 4QFY13,” said Afzal.
