KARACHI: Heavy vehicles and light commercial vehicles segments continued to show robust growth, while sales of bikes and three wheelers remained mixed in the first nine months of this fiscal year.

According to latest data released by Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA), tractor sector maintained slow trend in sales during July-March 2013-14 , but in March farm machinery sales recovered as compared to February 2014.

A total of 1,751 trucks (around 50pc share of Hino) were sold in July-March period as compared to 1,356 in same period last year. Hino truck sales went up to 758 from 614 units followed by sales of 264 units of Nissan as compared to 166 units. Master and Isuzu truck sales also increased to 367 and 362 units as compared to 364 and 212 units.

The bus sales stood at 433 units in July-March period compared to 395 units in the same period last year. In which the share of Hinopak buses stood at 379 as compared to 323 units.

In jeep segment, Sigma Defender sales swelled to 442 units from 296 units. In pick-up category, the market leader Suzuki Ravi sales jumped to 9.036 units from 7,518 units followed by slight rise in Toyota Hilux sales to 3,372 from 3,178 units.

Overall tractor production (Fiat and Massey Ferguson) remained in red with 23,483 units as compared to 35,279 units. However, sales of Fiat and Massey Ferguson in March 2014 rose to 932 and 2,066 units from 545 and 1,060 units in February 2014 showing that farmers were back in lifting tractors at higher GST of 17 per cent. The government raised the GST from 10 to 17 per cent from January 2014.

In two and three wheeler segments, Honda maintained its high sales with 484,024 units in July-March 2013-2014 as compared to 479,211 units in same period last fiscal while Suzuki bike sales also climbed to 18,070 from 13,553 units. DYL motorcycles sales plunged sharply to 10,125 units from 45,978 units. Sohrab, Qingqi and Ravi bikes sales grew to 3,419, 3,231 and 15,399 units from 1,161, 2,111 and 14,447 units respectively. Among the losers were Hero and Habib bikes whose sales stood at 10,833 and 14,647 units as compared to 16,638 and 18,222 units.

Sazgar three wheeler sales increased to 10,122 in July-March 2013-2014 from 7,017 units while sales of Qingqi declined to 17,216 from 19,030 units.