Pak Suzuki raises car prices for second time in a month

Pak Suzuki Motor Company (PSMC) increased its car prices for a second time within a month in the range of Rs175,000-350,000, after an upward price revision by Indus Motor Company and Honda Atlas. The new rates will come into effect from February 9.

The company had earlier hiked prices on January 24 in the range of Rs115,000 and Rs355,000.

With the latest round of price increase, the rate of its cheapest and most popular passenger car Alto VX crossed the Rs2 million mark.

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Alto VX will now be sold for Rs2.034 million following a price hike of Rs175,000.

The higher end Swift GLX CVT will now be selling for Rs4.462 million after a price hike of Rs347,000. The vehicle was earlier priced at Rs4.115 million.

Wagon-R variants saw a price increase in the range of Rs248,000-289,000 while Cultus models witnessed hikes in the range of Rs287,000-337,000.

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Recently, Indus Motor Company and Honda Atlas also raised their prices for the second time within a month amid massive rupee depreciation.

Auto sector analyst Arsalan Hanif told Business Recorder that “Pak Suzuki hiked prices just like other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who have raised prices multiple times in a month’s time”.

“The only reason behind the price increase is the recent depreciation of rupee. We expect higher car prices to slow down the sales volumes of the company as the purchasing power parity of consumers is affected due to high inflation and soaring interest rates.”

When Suzuki increased prices last month, company spokesperson Shafiq Ahmed Shaikh said that “it is a critical time for Pak Suzuki as the vendors and dealers are disturbed due to no production and sales.”

“This is due to the current economic uncertainties, inflation in input cost, volatile situation of forex and increase in prices of utilities and overheads. This has made it very difficult for us to hold the current selling prices,” he said.

Over the past one month, Indus Motor Company (Toyota), Honda Atlas Cars, Lucky Motor Corporation (KIA) and Hyundai Nishat Motor have all announced an increase in car prices amid rapid rupee depreciation.

Earlier this month, Honda Atlas Cars jacked up the prices of its vehicles for the second time in two weeks, with the hike being as high as Rs1.1 million on a cumulative basis.

Hyundai-Nishat Motors also jacked up the prices of its vehicles in the range of Rs400,000-500,000 earlier this month. Lucky Motor Corporation increased prices of its KIA vehicles in the range of Rs100,000 to Rs1.3 million.

Indus Motor, the assembler and seller of Toyota-brand vehicles in Pakistan, has also recently increased prices of its cars twice. IMC notified an increase in the prices on its vehicles with the hike going as high as Rs1.16 million in the latest round of price hike.

Pakistan’s automobile sector has been hit hard owing to problems with the opening of Letters of Credit (LCs), arising due to the rapidly depleting foreign exchange reserves and weakening rupee.