The Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade has released statistics for vehicle production during the first five months of this Iranian year (ended August 22), during which local car manufacturers produced 365,371 units of vehicles.
According to Donya-e-Eqtesad, the figure shows a 16.3% increase compared to the same period of last year.
With a respective 25.6% and a 5.8% increase compared to the same period of last year, during this year's five-month period, the country's first and second largest auto manufacturers, Iran Khodro Company and SAIPA each produced 224,452 and 97,492 units respectively.
With 63,229 units produced, IKCO's Peugeot Pars is the second most manufactured car in Iran after SAIPA's Pride with 89,077 units produced during the period.
Pars Khodro, on the other hand, produced 43,427 units during the same period, which shows a 0.3% decrease year-on-year.
This Iranian year, SAIPA and IKCO have begun the production of new models as well. IKCO produced 17 units of the Chinese SUV Haima S7.
SAIPA has also recently produced 3,261 units of Kia Cerato as well as 975 units of the Chinese Ario S300.
Also, 15,331 L90s (Dacia Logans) were produced in Iran during the same period, down by 1.96% compared to the same period of the previous year.
Up by 3.18% IKCO produced 7,005 L90s while Pars Khodro's production of the same model decreased by 3.14% with 8,326 units.
Although overall figures indicate that vehicle production is up, a monthly comparison reveals that auto manufacturers have decreased production during the month ending August 22.
Production figures were down during the period compared to the previous month and the month before by 9.5% and 17.2% respectively. The downward production trend began in June and continues to this day.
Pundits believe that the trend has been caused by customers' refusal to purchase locally manufactured cars. For months now, customers have been waiting for the entry of new European models and refusing to buy overpriced local cars of subpar quality.
