Pakistani Vehicles Sales in October 2023 continue to fall, posting the 16th consecutive monthly loss with 6,121 new registrations (-54.0%). YTD figures at 69,481 are down 63.4% from the prior year.
Market Trend and Outlook
Pakistan’s economy slowed sharply in FY23 with real GDP estimated to have contracted by 0.6%. According to the World Bank’s latest Pakistan Development Update: Restoring Fiscal Sustainability, released on October 3rd 2023, the decline in economic activity reflects the cumulation of domestic and external shocks including the floods of 2022, government restrictions on imports and capital flows, domestic political uncertainty, surging world commodity prices, and tighter global financing.
In particular the continuous floods started in June of 2022 have affected many live in Pakistan, causing more than 1500 death, over 12,000 injuries and displacing around 33 million people. The heavy rain also destroyed many cars both on the road and in dealerships, inducing a collapse in the countries vehicle industry.
The Pakistani Vehicle Market, in fact, hasn’t yet recovered, with sales in October 2023 continuing to fall, posting the 16th consecutive monthly loss with 6,121 new registrations (-54.0%). YTD figures at 69,481 are down 63.4% from the prior year.
Looking at cumulative data up to October 2023 brand-wise, the leader is Suzuki, in 1st with 31,749 sales (-68.9%), in front of Toyota at 18,355 (-62.3%), Honda with 8,745 new registrations (-67.6%) and Hyundai with 7,752 units sold (-34.5%).
Haval rises into 5th with 2,179 sales, Chery follows in 6th with 562 new registrations and BAIC in 7th with 139 units sold (-62.2%).
Looking at specific models the Suzuki Alto is the best seller with an 67.2% year-on-year loss in volume, followed by the Toyota Corolla down 69.7%.
Medium-Term Market Trend
Pakistani automotive industry is closed to import by the huge duties imposed by the government. The industry is so deputy to a small group of foreign (Japanese) companies which have invested years ago to produce locally, which offer dated models at huge (for the local purchase power) price.
Consumers have very limited choice as model, specification, negotiation.
The most of people prefer to purchase a motorcycle instead of car for personal use and the car industry is very small compared to the population living in the country.
Anyhow, the light vehicles market was growing up until the 2019 introduction of additional duties, with the all-time record established in the 2018 at 264K.
In 2019 the market fell down for increased prices correlated with increased taxes and in 2020 collapsed again for the effect of covid restrictions, hitting the lowest level in the last 15 years.
Despite surging 89.4% in 2021, the market took a substantial hit in 2022. In June of 2022 Pakistan started to experienced heavy floods that destroyed the country and induced the automotive industry to collapse. In fact, the last 6 months of the year reported losses, with total sales reaching 231,248 by the end of 2022 (-4.8%).
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group and top 10 Models.
