KARACHI: Pak Suzuki Motor Company (PSMC) on Tuesday announced that it will observe three non-production days — every Monday — during the month of January owing to depressed demand.

In a notice to its vendors, the company said that it will observe “Mondays of current month as NPDs owing to depressed demand.”

January is usually considered as a recovery month for auto sales as buyers resume purchases after slowing down their buying activities in November and December of every year due to change of model year.

Vendors said the PSMC had also revised down production schedule of its hot selling Alto 660cc car by 25 per cent for January.

They said that Atlo was one of the main driving forces for Pak Suzuki as well as for the vendors amid sales crash in other vehicles like Cultus, Swift, Bolan and WagorR in the last few months.

The PSMC had raised prices by Rs49,000-90,000 of almost all of its models from Jan 1.

Situation at other leading Japanese plants are different following improvement in production outlook.

Honda raises prices

Honda Atlas Cars Limited (HACL) on Tuesday jacked up prices of various models by Rs20,000-100,000 effective from Jan 16.

For example, Honda City 1.3 MT and AT will cost Rs2.329 million and Rs2.509m respectively, up by Rs20,000. City 1.5L MT, AT, Aspire MT and Aspire AT will be available at Rs2.389m, Rs2.55m, Rs2.539m and Rs2.719m, up by Rs20,000.

Civic Turbo, 1.8LVTI, I.8L VTI CVT prices have been raised to Rs 4.479m, Rs3.779m and Rs3.549m, up by Rs80,000, Rs30,000 and Rs50,000 respectively.

Honda BR-V MT will cost Rs2.999m, showing a jump of Rs100,000 while CVT and VS CVT models will be available at Rs3.149m and Rs3.299m, up by Rs50,000 each.

A HACL official said “there will be no production off day in January. We will work all days.”

The HACL had worked only eight days in December last year as compared to seven days in November because of unsold inventory and depressed sales. The company had earlier observed 16-18 NPDs in October while it had reduced working days to 11 in September as against 13 in August and 20 in July.

“December 2019 was better than expectation. We are hoping a comparatively better January 2020,” the HACL official added.

Indus Motor Company (IMC) had not observed any NPDs in December while it had observed 4-5 NPDs during November 2019. The IMC had shut down production for 15 days in September as against eight in July and 11-12 in August.

The IMC plant had been operating on single shift since start of 2QFY20. “We are still working on single shift in January 2020 which means the plant is operating at 50pc capacity,” IMC official said.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2020