Toyota cancels Yaris launch event owing to coronavirus lockdown

KARACHI: The Indus Motor Company Limited (INDU) has cancelled the launch event of Yaris (New Car) owing to the coronavirus pandemic in the country and its plant is not operational since the last week of March 2020, the company briefed the analysts of brokerage houses during a corporate briefing here on Tuesday evening.

As a result of emergence of COVID-19 in Pakistan, the promotional and marketing activities related to Yaris launch remained suspended.

During the corporate briefing session, the company has requested the government to eliminate custom duties, additional custom duties on imports under SRO 655 & 656 and FED on vehicles to sustain the volumetric sales for automobile industry.

Under the proposals of EV & HEV policy, company has requested government to not allow the duty concessions for common vehicle parts which are already being manufactured in Pakistan as it can have a negative impact on local vendor industry.

The management discussed its key focus including the suspension of manufacturing operations of the company due to the lockdown imposed by the government because of COVID-19 outbreak since the later half of Mar-2020. The management expects to resume operations post the month of Ramadan (i.e. around June-2020).

Similarly, all company dealerships have also remained non-operational during this period due to which there has been negligible sales in April-2020.

The management apprised that in spite of marketing activities remaining subdued, initial response on the booking of Yaris was above expectations for the two-days before the imposition of lockdown.

Going forward, the management expects that there will be no case of cannibalization between its different variants of Yaris & Corolla as both are different segment cars.

INDU has maintained its market share of 21 per cent in nine-month 2019-20 while KIA a new entrant in the automobile industry has gained a market share of 5 per cent in the same period.

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