Leading Carmakers in India have announced a price hike throughout their entire lineup. The increased price will be come into effect from the January 2017. The car brands like Tata, Hyundai, Toyota and Nissan has already confirmed the price hike while more are about to.
The homegrown automotive manufacturer, Tata Motors has announced that from January 2017, there would be a hike in its passenger vehicle segment in the range of INR 5,000 to INR 25,000, varies according to the model. The company has cited the increased cost of raw materials like steel, aluminium, copper and rubber as the reason behind this price hike.
Another in the row, Hyundai Motors India has also confirmed to increase the price up to INR 1 Lakh throughout the entire range from January next year. From entry level Eon hatchback to range-topping flagship SUV Santa Fe, every model will receive a hike in its regular price. This also affects the recently launched new Tucson SUV. The company explained several reasons behind the price hike, that include increased input costs, continuously increasing marketing expenses and varying exchange rates.
Expressing the view on price hike, Hyundai India, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Rakesh Srivastava said, "In these challenging year-end market conditions, we are constrained to consider price increase on account of factors like increased input costs, fluctuating exchange rates and increasing marketing expenses. The proposed price increase will be up to ₹ 1,00,000 and will be effective from January 2017 across all models from Eon to Santa Fe."
A few days ago, Japanese based two leading auto manufacturers, Toyota Kirloskar Motor India and Nissan India has also confirmed hike in price across their lineup from January 2017. Nissan announced that hike in the car price will be up to INR 30,000 and will affect all the Nissan and Datsun models in the country including the recently launched brand’s most premium 2-door 4-seater, Nissan GT-R. Nissan stated that the move came in the wake of rising inputs costs.
Commenting on the price hike, Arun Malhotra, Managing Director at Nissan Motor India said, "The price increase comes as a result of rising input costs. The revision of prices will help us offset the impact of this and maintain our competitiveness in the industry."
Earlier, Toyota had also announced to increase the price of its entire portfolio in India from January 2017. According to the company statement, there will be a hike of 3 percent throughout its entire range. The company also cited the increased manufacturing cost and continuously rising foreign exchange rates as a reason behind the price hike. The same hike was also made by the Japanese maker back on December 15, 2015.
Explaining the price hike move, Director & Sr. Vice President, Marketing and Sales, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, N. Raja said, "There has been an increase in prices of raw material commodities like steel, aluminum, copper and rubber over a period of the last six months and this puts a lot of pressure on us as all this has been leading to a higher input cost on our end. Another factor leading to higher input cost in our case is the appreciation of yen in the international market which has increased the cost of parts that we import from Japan”.
Commenting on the constantly increasing foreign exchange rates, he further added, “We do a periodic review of the prices of our products basis the above factors and take necessary actions. We have been absorbing all the additional costs till now thereby protecting our customers from the price increase. However, owing to continued pressure of high costs and foreign exchange rates remaining at high levels of above ₹ 68 for every USD, we had to increase the cost of our products”.
Having a look at the records of the past few years, this is now become usual for the automakers in the country to increase the price of the vehicles by the end of the year. This helps them to get clear the remaining stocks by the year end and improve the sales figures in the last month.
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