The beginning of the next financial year (2011-12) will see top carmakers increasing their prices due to growing input cost which is affecting their bottomlines. While Tata Motors has already announced that it would hike prices of its passenger vehicles by up to Rs.36,000 from April 1, other leading carmakers — Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai Motor — are also considering a similar move to offset rising input cost. “Despite continuous cost control initiatives, the company is being forced to take these increases on account of a steep rise in input cost,” Tata Motors said in a statement on Friday. While prices of hatchback Indica will go up by Rs.7,000 to Rs.9,000, that of sedan Vista and Indigo CS will be hiked by Rs.8,000-11,000 and Manza by Rs.10,000-15,000. However, prices of Nano will not be revised.
In the utility vehicle segment, Sumo prices will go up by Rs.13,000-15,000, Grande by Rs.16,000-19,000, Safari by Rs.18,000-29,000, Aria by Rs.30,000-36,000 and Venture by Rs.9,000-12,000.
Similarly, other players like Ford India and General Motors are still to decide on this.
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In the luxury segment, Honda has already announced a 2-3 per cent increase in the prices of its cars from next month. “Commodity prices are rising strongly in recent months. We will raise the prices of all our cars by 2-3 per cent from next month to minimise the impact of strengthening raw material rates,” a company statement said. Other luxury carmakers like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Toyota, Volkswagen and Skoda are still to decide on the price hike issue.