The car makers are going to increase prices in India from next month in January, due to rising costs. So if you are planning to buy a new car next year, be ready to pay a little bit extra. Maruti Suzuki India will hike prices by 2-4 per cent from next month in order to partially offset the impact of rising input costs.
Mr. R S Kalsi, Executive Director (Marketing and Sales) of Maruti Suzuki India, said “we are planning to increase the prices in the range of 2-4 per cent across our entire range of products from January. It was in October 2013 that we had taken our last price hike. We have been absorbing the impact of higher input costs for quite some time now but we did not hike the prices because the market was not doing well.”
Hyundai Motor India also announced to hike prices across all models in the range of Rs 5,000 to Rs. 25,000 effective from January 2015.
While the General Motors India had announced a price hike by up to Rs. 20,000 in order to partially offset rising input costs.
Last week BMW had also announced to raise product prices by up to 5% in India with effect from the first week of January.
Last month, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra had announced to hike prices in the range of 1-2 percent due to higher input costs.
Volkswagen, Ford, Honda and Toyota are yet to decide the percentage of price hike in India, say executives in these companies.
The reasons to hold rising prices till date was the 4-6% excise duties cut by the Government of India early last year and this cut was valid till the end of June 2014, but it was extended to December 2014. And now the extension of excise duty benefit has finished, the automakers have no choice except increase prices.