India’s largest car manufacturer – Maruti Suzuki has announced that prices of its vehicles will be revised from January 2021. Maruti Suzuki has cited the hike as an impact of rising input costs that in turn increases the manufacturing cost.
In a regulatory filing, Maruti Suzuki has said that the input costs of all the vehicles have increased due to various reasons. The details on the hike are not known though. Maruti Suzuki may formally announce the price hike at a later date and also provide details on the percentage of the hike on all the cars. Maruti Suzuki has planned to pass on the impact of the additional cost to the customers and it will be effective from 1st January.
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Maruti Suzuki’s entry-level model, the Alto has a starting price of Rs 2.95 lakh while the XL6’s top-end variant is priced at Rs 11.52 lakh, making it the most expensive car in the line-up. The more expensive cars will likely get a higher percentage of the hike while the entry-level models will get smaller hikes to ensure that the best-selling models are not impacted much.
“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 in January 2021,” the company said.
The year 2020 has been a slow-selling period for all the car manufacturers. After the impact of the COVID-19 and related lockdown, which shut down all the dealerships across India and even forced to shut down the production for about a month. Post that, the sales have been slow for all the manufacturers in India. Maruti Suzuki’s YoY sales shrunk by 2.5% for November 2020. It had sold 1,39,133 units in 2019 November, which came down to 1,35,775 units. Maruti Suzuki plant was even used to supply emergency medical respirator, which is a critical device to save severe COVID-19 cases.
Maruti Suzuki has about 50% of the market share in India and it is ahead of all other manufacturers by a big margin. Maruti Suzuki currently offers a long list of vehicles in the mass-segment. It includes Alto, Celerio, Swift, Ignis, Dzire, Baleno, Ciaz, Ertiga, Vitara Brezza, S-Cross and XL6! The brand is also planning to launch a few new products in 2021 and it may include the all-new Jimny, which was showcased at the 2020 Auto Expo and gathered a huge crowd.
Earlier this year, Maruti Suzuki discontinued all its diesel-powered variants in the market. This move started last year to ensure that its vehicles meet the BS6 emission norms. The only two diesel-exclusive models – S-Cross and the Vitara Brezza were given 1.5-litre petrol engine. Maruti currently has no plans to re-introduce the diesel engine back in the market. However, if the demand rises in the future, the diesel engines might make a comeback. Currently, only Maruti Suzuki has announced the price hike. However, most of the other manufacturers are likely to follow the suite.
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