Nearly 70% of all customers who had signed up for the national auto loan scheme have had their vehicles delivered by SAIPA, said the sales deputy of Iran�s second-largest vehicle manufacturer.

Reza Taqizadeh added that the remaining 30% customers will be compensated in cash for the delay in delivery, Mehr News Agency reported.

To help jumpstart Iran�s slumbering market, the government, in collaboration with the Central Bank of Iran, introduced an auto loan scheme in November 2015. The loans were well-received by the thousands who signed up for the long-term payment plan and 110,000 cars were sold in less than six days.

According to Taqizadeh, the contracts stipulated that customers would receive the cars in not more than 30 days.

�Most customers had their vehicles delivered in less than a month,� he said, while reassuring others that SAIPA will fulfill all its obligations to its customers.

The SAIPA official promised that the company will pay 30% annual interest on the down payments for the cars for the duration of the delay.

Taqizadeh noted that the delay had been caused due to shortage of time for coordinating the affairs with the banks responsible for ratifying the documents submitted by the customers.

Statistics

According to the latest statistics released by the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade, after the auto loan was introduced, automotive manufacturers managed to sell all the cars they had in their parking lots.

The ministry�s statistics reveal that 682,000 vehicles were sold by the end of the third quarter of the current fiscal year (December 21, 2015), Donya-e-Eqtesad reported.

The data also show that during the month ending December 21, 2015, Iran�s largest auto manufacturer, Iran Khodro Company, produced 37,000 units of Peugeot 206s while registering sales of 58,004 units of the French hatchback.

The difference in numbers indicates that the company will have to produce 21,004 more units of 206s.

However, in the same period, the company produced 6,373 units of Samand but managed to sell 14,426 units by offloading its inventory.

The report said that during the month ending December 21, 2015, a total of 78,707 units were produced, up by 41% compared to the preceding month.

According to an IRNA report, 72,087 of the vehicles produced were passenger cars.

It noted that by the end of Q3, over 626,000 passenger vehicles, 48,000 pickups, 8,000 trucks, 543 buses and 421 minibuses were manufactured in Iran, as reports by Trends indicate a 17% decline in production numbers over the same period of the previous Iranian year.

The report adds that local carmakers produced 5,833 pickups, 668 trucks, 85 buses and 34 minibuses over the month ending December 21, 2015.

Iran�s auto industry received a brief respite from falling sales over the past 12 months, with buyers jumping quickly on the scheme. The numbers for cars sold in the past month will be released later in the year, but several auto experts have predicted that the industry will likely experience a large contraction in orders for new cars due to a lack of credit.

By Financial Tribune