KARACHI: Although the Economic Survey FY24 presents a bleak picture of production, local assemblers should be celebrating as sales of cars, light commercial vehicles (LCVs), jeeps, and pickups reached a 17-month high of 10,949 units in May 2024, indicating a 100% year-over-year and 4% month-over-month increase.
Despite costly vehicle financing because of the monetary policy rate of 22 percent, assemblers saw a comeback in sales thanks to a decrease in pricing for some variants. Despite the improvement, sales of automobiles, jeeps, vans, and pickups decreased by 25% in 11MFY24 to 90,542 units from 120,845 in the same time the previous fiscal year.
Tractor sales increased to 41,360 units in 11MF24 from 27,952 units in the same period the previous fiscal year, a 48 percent increase. The high increase in tractor sales was ascribed by Sunny Kumar of Topline Securities to the low base of last year amid floods, and the 100pc YoY increase in car, jeep, van, and truck sales was ascribed to a low base from last year during plant shutdowns.
While three-wheeler sales increased by 20% to 21,778 from 18,098 during the same time last fiscal year, two-wheeler sales decreased by 4% to 1.04 million units during 11MFY24.
Sales of trucks and buses increased to 247 units in May 2024, an increase of 8% MoM and 61pc YoY.
