Wednesday, March 12, 2008
By our correspondent
KARACHI: Auto sales, cars and Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV), for the first eight months (Jul-Feb) of FY08 stood at 119,055 units, showing a decline of 4 per cent as compared to 124,173 units sold in the same period of FY07.
Alone in Feb 2008, the situation is no different as auto sales depicted a decline 9 per cent as compared to Feb 2007 (15,464 units in Feb 2008 versus 16,947 units in Feb 2007) according to the figures released by Pakistan Automotive Manufacturing Association (PAMA).
On month-on-month basis, however, sales have shown an improvement of 6 per cent (15,464 units sold in Feb 2008 versus 14,642 units in Jan 2008). This slight increase can be attributed to the removal of withholding tax (WHT) of 2.5 per cent for 2 months effective Feb 21, 2008.
The real impact of this removal of tax will be seen in the following month of Mar 2008. Moreover, political uncertainty has decreased to some extent as the new government is all set to take charge. Historical trend also suggests that sales in second half of FY08 are on average, 25 per cent higher versus the first half.
Looking at the car sales alone, it has been seen that the sales in Jul-Feb FY08 have declined by 8 per cent to 93,391 units versus 101,664 units in corresponding period of last year.
The share break-up for cars and LCVs in auto sales is 78 per cent and 22 per cent, respectively. Amongst four major vehicle assemblers in Pakistan, except for Pak Suzuki, all assemblers depicted the substantial negative growth during the first 8 months of FY08.
Pak Suzuki registered flat sales as its total volumetric sales in Jul-Feb FY08 stood at 72,767 units versus 72,794 units previously.
Other assemblers posted a negative growth of 3 per cent (Indus Motors), 19 per cent (Dewan Farooq) and 20 per cent (Honda Atlas Cars), respectively. Glancing at the month on month figures, however, Pak Suzuki depicted the highest growth of 13 per cent as sales of all its primary products like Cultus, Alto, Mehran and Bolan recovered considerably.
Dewan showed a flat sales growth while Indus and Honda fell by 5 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively. During Jul-Feb FY08, Pak Suzuki was able to increase its auto market share to 61 per cent from 59 per cent (cars and LCVs only) at the expense of Honda Atlas Cars whose market share fell from 9 per cent to 8 per cent.
Moreover, Dewan Farooq’s market share also declined from 6 per cent in FY07 to 5 per cent in FY08. Indus Motor was able to maintain its market share of 25 per cent, stated Bilal Hameed analyst at JS Global Capital.