India’s mega automobile manufacturing company – Maruti Suzuki has decided to hike the prices of its various models starting from January 2020. According to the brand, the reason behind the hike in prices is to tackle the rising input costs over the past year.
“You are kindly informed that over the past year, the cost of the company’s vehicles has been impacted adversely due to increase in various input costs. Hence, it has become imperative for the Company to pass on some impact of the above additional cost to customers through a price increase across various models in January 2020. This price increase shall vary for different models”, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Although in the last line of the official statement it is being said that the price hike may vary for different models, it is interesting to know that brand didn’t disclose the models that will fall under the price increase. In the last month, it was reported that the company dispatched 1,41,400 units to its dealers in the domestic market, and in addition to that, the company also sold 2,286 units of the rebadged Baleno (Glanza) to Toyota Kirloskar Motors.
The recent festive season did manage to make a change to the ongoing slowdown situation as Maruti posted a 2.3% increase in sales in October but the sales fell again in November by 3.3%.
A decline has also been recorded in the sales of major auto companies like Tata Motors, Honda Cars, Eicher Motors, and Mahindra & Mahindra. According to the industry experts, the negative trend would continue as the deadline for the implementation of the BS6 emission norms by April 2020 is approaching. All the automobile brands including Maruti Suzuki are making their best attempts to reduce their inventory of BS4 models to zero prior to the deadline.
