Alam Zeb Khan
ISLAMABAD: Amid the ongoing financial crunch in the country, devaluation of the local currency against the dollar, and increase in prices in the automobile sector, sales of cars witnessed a drastic decline in the year 2023 both month on month and year on year bases.
Meanwhile, despite facing some challenges, automobile manufacturing companies are still successful in dominating their monopoly while increasing the prices of cars a number of times in the recent past.
As a result, the sale of cars across the country has suffered a nose-dive impact ranging from a 20 to 80 percent decline in different categories.
Meanwhile, the management of Suzuki Company shut down its automobile plant in February for a few days, lamenting the inventory level shortage.
In addition, a couple of days before, Hunda Company also announced closing its plant, citing financial concerns as a major reason.
However, economic experts believe that the closing of plants by the automobile companies for a few days was nothing but just to blackmail the government to avoid further taxation and relaxation in prices. They say these companies did the same practice in the past.
As a result, the major affectees are the end users who suffer all the time in the country.
Major decline in cars sale in the country
The following table shows how consumers are now reluctant to buy new cars due to ongoing crises. For instance, Honda Civic and City witnessed a 45 percent decline in sales during the current year. At the same time, Corolla/Yaris observed a 70 percent decline in 2023 compared to 60 percent in sales during 2022.
Others details are available in the following table.
