News Desk |
It can be said that Pakistan’s national ride is probably the motorcycle, after the gradual exodus of the Horse carts and rickshaws in pop culture. Bikes are economical, easy to learn and drive -. It’s a popular domestic feature, but even that has become a little too inaccessible in the ever-rising inflation.
Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) has released the sales figures of local bike makers for the month of April 2019, and they are dismal. On a Year on Year and Month on Month analysis, the bike market sales have declined by 13%.
As per PAMA stats published in the Pakwheels blog, the only automotive news publication in Pakistan, the sales of all leading brands, including Honda and Yamaha, is down on a Year-on-Year basis. Observing the figures: Honda Pakistan has sold 105,013 bikes units in April 2019, whereas, the year, it shipped 115,161 units. There is a decrease of 9% in sales. However, if we look at the stats of Month-on-Month (MoM) (April – March 2019), the sales are up by 17%.
With inflation and other factors hurdling the sales of commodities, it is high time that the government steps up and runs diagnostics.
Moreover, analyzing Yamaha and United Auto Motorcycles, both companies sold 1,806 and 26,656 units in April 2019 while at the same time of the corresponding year they sold 2,314 and 34,672 bikes. Simply put, the year-on-year sales of Yamaha and United is down by a whopping 22% and 23%, respectively. Same as Honda, the sales of Yamaha in terms of MoM is up. Moreover, for Yamaha experienced an increased in sales by 39%, whereas the sales for United remained stable.
The stats went further on to report that Suzuki and DYL Motorcycle, cumulatively shipped 1,914 bikes in April of this year, while, on the other hand, they sold 2,333 units in April 2018. The sale of Suzuki (YoY) is down by 2%, and that of DYL is down by 76%. Now coming to MoM stats: Suzuki sales are down by 18% and the sales of DYL decreased by 12%. Additionally, Road Prince vended 12,709 bikes as opposed to 15,318 units in April last year. The sales are down by 17%.
Read more: Prompting riots: Honda raises bike prices
Another popular Bike brand, Ravi, sold 2,062 motorbikes in April 2019 and 2,847 bikes in the same month of the previous year, which is another 18% annual decline. With inflation and other factors hurdling the sales of commodities, it is high time that the government steps up and runs diagnostics.