Pakistan records 31% increase in car sales in February

• Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association says car sales in February 2021 higher compared to same month last year.
• Car sales decreased by 6.7% in February compared to January.
• Pama says sale of jeeps, tractors, pickups, three-wheelers and motorcycles saw an increase in February.

KARACHI: Passenger car sales increased by 31% in February 2021 compared to the same period last year, due to low markups and start-of-year buying, latest data showed on Thursday.

Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (Pama) said that passenger car sales grew to 13,570 units in February 2021 from 10,345 units sold in February 2020. 

However, February sales decreased by 6.7% on a month-on-month comparison as 14,543 units were sold in January.

Read more: Pakistan records 44% increase in car sales in January

The association did note that sale of jeeps, tractors, pickups, three-wheelers and motorcycles saw an increase.

One analyst said that sales were higher in January compared to February as buyers prefer buying at the start of the year. He also added that the numbers were less in February as it has fewer days.

But he did forecast that sales would likely increase in the coming months due to the low markup regimes introduced by banks.

The data showed that cumulative sales in the first eight months (July-February) of the ongoing fiscal year stood at 95,139 units, seeing an increase of 20%. In the same period of the last fiscal year, car sales stood at 79,534.

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In February, sales of 1300cc and above cars increased by 6.0% to 6,114 units, compared with 5,769 units sold in the same month a year back.

The News reported that the improvement can be attributed to the increased sales of Toyota Yaris (2,566 units). 

However, sales of Indus Motor’s popular Toyota Corolla continued on a downward trend by declining 68% to 1,177 units against 3,715 units sold in February 2020. 

The sale of Honda Civic and City increased by 17% to 2,192 from 1,868 units in the same period of 2020. Suzuki Swift sales dropped to 179 cars from 186 cars sold last year.

Sales of 1,000cc cars, Suzuki Cultus and Suzuki WagonR, marginally increased to 2,298 units against 2,234 in the corresponding period.

Read more: Car sales in Pakistan witness 18% increase in first half of fiscal year

Under 800cc car sales surged 120% to 5,158 units in February against 2,342 units in the same month of 2020, led by Suzuki Alto, selling 4,245 units compared to 1,620 in February last.

Sales of buses and trucks dropped to 329 units in February from 402 in the same period a year earlier.

Sales of jeeps increased to 119% to 1,058 units from 484 units during the same month last year as Toyota Fortuner sales grew 30% to 275 units from 211 and Hyundai Tucson sales rose to 546 units.