Maruti Suzuki hikes car prices by up to Rs 10,000 for select models

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd Wednesday said it will hike its car prices by up to Rs 10,000 for select models with immediate effect to offset adverse impact of increase in commodity prices and foreign exchange rates.

Maruti Suzuki India in a regulatory filing said prices will go up “for select models owing to increase in commodity prices and foreign exchange rates etc. The price change varies across models and ranges up to Rs 10,000 (ex-showroom, Delhi)”.

“The new prices are effective from January 10, 2019, ” it added.

India’s largest carmaker did not specify which car models will become costlier post this price hike.

Currently, Maruti Suzuki cars start from the entry-level Alto 800 to the premium crossover S-Cross priced between Rs 2.53 lakh and Rs 11.45 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).

Shares of Maruti Suzuki were trading 0.09 per cent higher at Rs 7,472.45 apiece on the BSE.

Earlier, Maruti Suzuki had cut its sales forecast to 8% from an earlier projection of double digit growth.

It expects the fourth quarter to bring back the momentum in the passenger vehicle sales, which have seen a flat growth for last 5-6 months.

“We recorded a good growth in the first quarter at around 10.5%, subsequent which there was a flat growth. But we expect this to return in last quarter taking overall growth for this fiscal at 8%,” Maruti Suzuki India chairman R C Bhargava said.

Last year, the company had said it was looking at a double-digit sales growth in the current fiscal.

After the first quarter, sales have been flat for Maruti Suzuki mainly in third quarter while the industry saw negative growth. There are historical instances of sales being lower in a pre-election year and picking up substantially again in the election year, he said.

“We have done an analysis of the past numbers and the conclusion is that sales always fell in the last two pre-election years,” he said.