Special schemes to woo bike buyers

KARACHI: Two Japanese bike assemblers have introduced special schemes to entice customers, while the third one, a market leader, has increased the price and its dealers are demanding premium for immediate delivery as demand outstrips supply by a big margin.

Suzuki and Yamaha are offering free bike registration to buyers but those who aspire to own Honda CG-125cc had to pay over and above already higher price.

A random market survey at Akbar Road, the hub of new and used bikes, revealed that authorised dealers of Atlas Honda Limited (AHL) do not have CG-125 model even for display at their showrooms.

However, some dealers while assuring buyers that the 125cc model will be available for spot delivery, were demanding an additional Rs3,000-4,000 as ‘on money’. The dealers said CG-125 is in short supply while the demand is high.

These dealers are also readily booking for CG-125, assuring buyers of deliver after 15 days. The dealers claim the situation is same in interior Sindh and Punjab for the popular Honda model. However, the same dealers of Honda were seen offering discount of Rs500 on the retail price on other Honda models.

Chairman Association of Pakistan Motor Cycle Assemblers (APMA), Mohammad Sabir Shaikh said AHL had raised the price of CG-125 by Rs1,000 from November 2015 to Rs103,900 while the prices of other Honda bikes remained the same.

Interestingly most bike assemblers have kept the prices unchanged despite one per cent increase in import duty on parts from December 1, 2015 under the Mini Budget.

Shaikh said due to depressed sales, Pak Suzuki Motor Company Limited and the maker of Yamaha bikes are selling the bikes without taking any registration fee which ranges between Rs4,000-5,000 per bike. These assemblers have kept the retail prices unchanged so far.

The maker of Yamaha bikes has been offering free registration from December 25 and the scheme would end after two days.

“Chinese bike assemblers too have not passed on the impact of 1pc hike in import duty to buyers owing to tight market conditions,” said Shaikh. He added that only AHL sales were going strong while two other Japanese bike assemblers were facing problems.

AHL had been producing over 70,000 units per month since Oct 2015. During July-Nov, the company sold 328,763 units as compared to 247,149 units in the same period last year. AHL sales in 2014-15 rose to 653,193 units as compared to 639,499 units in 2013-14.

According to figures of Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA), sales of Suzuki bikes had plunged to 7,080 units in July-November 2015 as compared to 9,265 units in the corresponding period 2014. Suzuki sales in 2014-15 dropped to 22,703 units from 24,356 units in 2013-14.

Yamaha arrived in the Pakistani market in July 2015 and went on to sell 7,601 units in July-Nov 2015.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2016