With car sales still to pick up and many people postponing purchase decisions due to financial year-end pressure or anxiety over budgetary provision, car companies are sweetening deals to attract buyers.
Many companies and their dealers have come out with freebies and offering easy EMI (equated monthly instalment) payment options to enable buyers to own a car with ease.
Multi-national car companies are aggressively offering easy EMI schemes by roping in their captive financing arms to offer car loans at cheaper rates, much lower than offered by domestic lenders.
Toyota is offering its hatchback Liva with a low EMI of Rs.7,777 or low interest rate of 6.66 per cent or low down payment of Rs.39,999. The sedan Etios is being offered at a low EMI of Rs.9,555 or low interest rate of 7.49 per cent or low down payment of Rs.49,999. The company has also made an exchange offer apart from a special offer for government employees and corporates.
Skoda Auto is offering its Rapid sedan at an EMI of Rs.8,999, and funding is being augmented from Skoda Finance. Volkswagen is offering added benefits of up to Rs.55,000 for its sedan Vento.
Hyundai Motor India is offering benefits of up to Rs.41,284 for its i 10, up to Rs.22,367 for EON, up to Rs.18,000 for i 20, up to Rs.20,000 for Verna and up to Rs.45,000 for Elantra.
A special edition of Tata Nano is on offer with a saving of Rs.40,000.
In the top-end segment, Audi is aggressively selling its Q3 and Q5 SUVs by augmenting funds from Audi Finance.
Audi Q3 has been offered with a down payment of Rs.5 lakh and a lower EMI of Rs.70,500 for 42 months. Audi Q5 has been offered with a down payment of Rs.7 lakh and a lower EMI of Rs.84,500 for 42 months.
Analysts believe that the current market sentiment is tepid, forcing car companies to bring some excitement by making offers to create demand.
“The time is bad for the auto industry. The January numbers are yet to be out, but except for Maruti, others must have witnessed flat or negative growth. The demand for petrol cars is anyway down but now sale of diesel car slowing down due to inconsistency in policy. There is fear that some cess would be levied on diesel cars in the budget. Overall the sentiment is negative on passenger car industry. So the trend for freebies will continue as companies under pressure to meet the quarterly target would cut margins to register sales,” said Surjit Arora, Auto Analyst at broking house Prabhudas Lilladher.
