South Asia Investor Review

Private vehicle ownership in Pakistan has risen sharply over the last 4 years. More than 9% of households now own cars, up from 6% in 2015. Motorcycle ownership has jumped from 41% of households in 2015 to 53% now, according to data released by Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) recently. There are 32.2 million households in Pakistan, according to 2017 Census. Vehicle Ownership in Pakistan. Source: PBS Total number of vehicles registered in Pakistan increased 9.6% to 23,588,268 in 2018, up from 21,506,641 vehicles in 2017. Of all the vehicle categories, motorcycles saw the biggest increase of 11.5% reaching 17,465,880. Cars, jeeps and station wagons rose 5.3% reaching 3,043,593. Trucks surged to 277,416 and buses to 236,461, according to Pakistan Today . Pakistan is now the 5th largest motorcycle market in the world after China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. With 7,500 new motorcycles being sold everyday, Pakistan is also the among the world's fastest growing two-wheele...

Steel production in Pakistan jumped 39.3% to 5 million tons last year, according to  World Steel Association . Earlier, Pakistan steel industry ramped up its output from 2.9 million tons in 2015 to 3.6 million tons in 2016. While Pakistan's steel production growth is the world's fastest,  its relatively small steel production volume of  5 million tons  ranks it 28th in the world. Other nations seeing strong growth in steel production are Iran (up 21.4%), Vietnam ( 31.9%) and Egypt (35%).   Iran ranks 13th with 21.7 million tons; Vietnam ranks 19th with 10.3 million tons; Egypt ranks 23rd with 6.8 million tons produced in 2017. Some of the key names ramping up  production capacity  in Pakistan are Aisha Steel Mill (ASM),  Amreli Steels and Agha Steel Industries. ASM, an Arif Habib Group company, is planning to  expand capacity  to a total of 700,000 tons a year from its current capacity of 220,000 tons. Amreli Steels Limite...

Pakistan is the 5th largest motorcycle market in the world after China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. With 7,500 new motorcycles being sold everyday, Pakistan is also the among the world's fastest growing two-wheeler markets. Passenger car and motorcycle sales in Pakistan are both soaring at rates of over 20% a year. Auto Demand Soaring: Nearly 2.3 million motorcycles have rolled off the factories in Pakistan in the last 10 months. The production of motorcycles jumped 22.34 percent in the first four months of fiscal year 2017-18 (FY18), over the corresponding period of in FY17, according to the latest data from Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) as reported by the  media . Pakistan automobile market is also expanding along with the motorcycle market. Sales of passenger cars soared  20.4% to 103,432 units  in the first half of the current fiscal year of 2017/18, recently released official data shows. Car sales were 85,901 in the same period of last fiscal year, ...

Pakistan's fiscal year 2015-16 saw production of motorcycles soar to a new high of over 2 million units. This represents a 16.5% surge from last year.  At the same time, passenger cars and light trucks sales rose to over 200,000 in fiscal 2016, a 20% jump over the same period last year. Motorcycle Sales: Rising motorcycle sales in Asia's developing nations like Pakistan are seen as a barometer of  expanding middle class . It is, in part, attributed to rising incomes and availability of  bank financing  at historic low interest rates in the country. As many as 2,071,123 motorcycles were manufactured during July-June (2015-16) compared to 1,777,251 units during July-June (2014-15), according to the latest data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and reported by  Pakistani media . Pakistan is the World's Sixth Largest Motorcycle Market Car Sales: In addition to the double digit increase in motorcycle sales, Pakistan also ex...