Car prices have surged by up to 54% since December 2017 – Check it out!

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In the last two years, car prices have only seen a sharp increase of up to 50%, primarily due to the depreciation of Pakistani Rupee against the US dollar. The rising prices were later supported by the imposition of several taxes and duties by the government such as Federal Excise Duty (FED) and additional customs duty.

However, in the last six months or so, the local currency has stabilized considerably but the auto manufacturers continue to revise prices of their automobiles without any apparent reason. Currently, there is no control of the government on these unfair price hikes. The sky-rocketing prices of cars have also resulted in a sharp decline in sales throughout the last seven months of the ongoing fiscal year 2019-20.

This situation forced the major automakers of the country to shut down their production plants for several months due to the low demand and piled up unsold inventories. In this article, we have compiled car prices data from December 2017 to compare with the current prices in February 2020. Let’s have a look at the car prices comparison of different Japanese automakers in the country.

Pak Suzuki:

Pak Suzuki’s car sales were mainly driven by its new prospect Alto in the entry-level hatchback segment. Ever since its launch in June last year, Suzuki Alto has been selling like hotcakes and turned out to be poison for Wagon R. A large proportion of Wagon R customers moved to buy Alto due to its low price and affordability factor. All other models of the auto manufacturer struggled in the local auto sector during the last year in terms of sales.

On the other hand, the car prices of Pak Suzuki did go up drastically since December 2017. In just over two year period, Wagon R witnessed an increase of nearly 55% in its VXL variant and just over 52% in its VXR variant. Similarly, the prices of Cultus went up by more than 39% for its base variant while an increase of almost 34% and 30% was recorded in the prices of VXL and AGS variants respectively.

Note here that Suzuki Mehran is not included in the chart below because the iconic model of the company was discontinued earlier last year. The other models include Bolan and Ravi for which the price increase was recorded as nearly 46% and 49% respectively. Suzuki Swift also got costlier by as high as 50% for the manual version and more than 46% for the automatic variant.

It is worth mentioning here that the company has observed a total of 7 NPDs during January and February 2020. Have a look at the price comparison details in the table below:

Toyota Indus:

Toyota Indus largely depends on the sales of its popular Corolla model and undoubtedly, its sales were affected in the last year or so. At the same time, the company introduced several promotional campaigns to boost up sales and also looking to discontinue the 1.3-liter variants of Corolla line-up soon to pave way for the all-new Toyota Yaris. The price of the Corolla model went up by as much as 48% since December 2017. Similarly, the price of Fortuner has also increased by 48% in this period of just over two years.

On the other hand, the price of Toyota Hilux Revo didn’t rise as much as the company’s other models. Toyota Hilux Revo got costlier by as much as 36% since the end of 2017. The automaker also observed many non-production days (NPDs) during the first six months of FY 2019-20. See the chart below for details:

Honda Atlas:

Honda Atlas is also having a forgettable period during the current fiscal year as its sales have nose-dived ever since its beginning. The prices of different variants of Honda City went up by 45% to 50% since December 2017. Likewise, the price of both variants of Honda Civic also witnessed an increase of 51% in the period under review. Honda BR-V, on the other hand, didn’t record as high an increase in its price as other models of the company. Its price went up by just over 41% in more than two years.

Note here that Honda Atlas observed the highest number of non-production days (NPDs) in the first six months of FY 2019-20; however, the automaker announced no shutdown since the start of January 2020.

Al-Haj FAW:

Al-Haj FAW has now long been in the auto sector of Pakistan with its few models produced in the country. Its mid-level hatchback FAW V2 VCT-I has observed a rise in its price by more than 47% in this period. On the other hand, FAW X-PV also got costlier than December 2017 by more than 39%.

What are your thoughts on the continuously rising prices of automobiles in Pakistan? Will the government regulate the entire process in the future? Let us know in the feedback section below and stay connected with PakWheels Blog for more automobile-related news updates.

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