Suzuki announces fourth plant shutdown of 2023 

LAHORE: Pak Suzuki Motor Company (PSMC) has notified the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) that it will be observing non-production days (NDPs) from February 13 to February 17. Its motorcycle plant will, however, remain operational. 

The company has not provided an explanation for its plant shutdown, however, it is likely that it is on account of lacking inventory in storage. The company had previously cited this as the reason for observing its non-production days (NPD) from January 2 to January 6, from January 9 to January 13, and from January 16 to January 20. 

Following this round of NPDs, Suzuki will have spent 20 calendar days out of a total of 48 not producing cars. This is to say that Suzuki will have spent four out of the first seven weeks of 2023 not producing cars. The ramifications of Suzuki’s actions will be visible when the Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) releases the requisite sales figures. However, despite the lack of sales figures for the month of January as of right now, past precedent eludes to there not being a strong correlation between Suzuki’s NPDs and its sales figures. 

Suzuki had previously halted production in August, September, and October of 2022. It observed NPDs from August 18 to August 19 , from August 22 to August 26, from August 29 to August 31, from September 6 to September 9, from September 19 to September 23, from October 19 to October 21, and October 24 to October 26. However, Suzuki only saw a Month-on-Month (MoM) decline in August where its sales contracted by 41%. Its MoM figures saw increases of 52% and 33% in September and August respectively based on PAMA’s figures. 

PAMA’s figures do depict Year-on-Year (YoY) sales decreases in the aforementioned three months of 2022 where Suzuki saw declines of 67%, 46%, and 22% respectively. These decreases, however, are visible even in those months where Suzuki did not observe NPDs. The YoY declines are a characteristic of the entire automotive industry this fiscal year, with those companies not observing NPDs also falling prey to it. 

February’s round of NPDs will be interesting as they come nearly a month after Suzuki announced an increase in prices across its entire portfolio, with its most affordable car now at  the Rs 2 million mark.