By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: Pakistan’s automotive industry closed the 2026 financial year with its strongest performance in years, as falling interest rates, a raft of new model launches and a late rush of pre-budget buying combined to lift sales across almost every category of vehicle.
Sales across the sector rose between 25 and 67 percent year on year in the 12 months to June, according to data released by the Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA), with tractors the only notable exception to an otherwise broad-based recovery.
Car sales climbed 39 percent to 155,631 units over the fiscal year, while the jeep, sport utility vehicle and van segment expanded 41 percent to 50,814 units. Analysts attributed the gains chiefly to cheaper auto financing following a series of central bank rate cuts, alongside a wave of new models from both established manufacturers and newer entrants to the market, and inflation that, while still elevated, has eased from the highs of recent years.
The strength was particularly evident in June, the final month of the fiscal year, when car sales rose to 15,378 units from 13,211 in May, while combined sales of jeeps, pickups, vans and SUVs jumped to 6,363 units from 4,449 the previous month.
Topline Securities, the Karachi-based brokerage, said the sharp month-on-month increase was driven largely by buyers seeking to complete purchases ahead of the annual budget, amid expectations that new duties and taxes would push prices higher.
That anticipation was most visible at Sazgar Engineering, which posted an all-time high of 2,720 units sold in June, more than double its sales in the same month a year earlier and up 70 percent from May. The company’s performance was underpinned by pre-budget purchasing as well as deliveries of its Tank model. Sazgar’s sales for the full fiscal year reached 19,179 units, an increase of 77 percent.
Pakistan Suzuki Motor Company recorded 11,543 units sold in June, up 30 percent on the month even as it registered a 13 peecent decline from a year earlier. The company launched its Fronx model in May and sold 1,717 units of the model in June alone. Suzuki’s sales for the full year rose 34 per cent to 97,117 units, making it comfortably the country’s largest carmaker by volume.
Honda Atlas Cars reported the sharpest annual gain among the major manufacturers, with June sales up 64 percent year on year and 33 percent month on month to 2,972 units. The company’s full-year total of 28,015 units, up 53 percent, marked its strongest performance in four years.
Indus Motor Company, which assembles Toyota vehicles in Pakistan, was one of the few manufacturers to post a decline, with June sales down 5 percent year on year to 3,507 units and roughly flat on the month. Sales of its Corolla, Yaris and Cross models fell a combined 9 percent year on year and 1 percent month on month to 2,650 units, while its Fortuner and IMV models rose 9 percent year on year and 6 percent month on month to 857 units. Despite the softer June, Indus Motor’s sales for the full fiscal year rose 34 percent to 44,646 units.
Hyundai Nishat Motors sold 1,351 units in June, down 7 percent from a year earlier but up 50 percent from May, with strong month-on-month gains in its Tucson and Porter models of 91 percent and 13 percent respectively. The company’s sales for the full year rose 18 per cent to 12,937 units.
The strongest absolute growth came in Pakistan’s vast two- and three-wheeler market, which remains the backbone of personal transport for much of the population. Sales rose 29 percent year on year and 4 percent month on month to 178,508 units in June, taking cumulative sales for the fiscal year to an all-time high of 1.97mn units, an increase of 30 percent. Atlas Honda accounted for the bulk of that market, selling 1.689mn units over the year, up 32 percent, equivalent to roughly seven in every eight two- and three-wheelers sold in the country.
Truck and bus sales also surged, rising 39 percent year on year and 43 percent month on month to 1,023 units in June. For the full fiscal year, sales in the segment climbed 61 per cent to 8,424 units, reflecting a pickup in commercial and logistics activity.
Tractors were the sole segment to buck the wider trend. Monthly sales rose 10 percent year on year and 17 percent month on month to 3,059 units in June, but full-year sales slipped 1 percent to 28,791 units, weighed down by weaker demand from the agricultural sector over the course of the year.
Topline Securities said it expected the momentum in auto sales to carry into the 2027 fiscal year, forecasting double-digit growth supported by the launch of further new variants and the continued entry of new brands into the Pakistani market.
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