MSI to hike vehicle prices from Jan

NEW DELHI: The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Thursday said it will increase vehicle prices from January next year to offset the impact of the rise in input costs.

The price increase would vary from model to model, the auto major said.

“Over the past year, the cost of company’s vehicles continue to be adversely impacted due to increase in various input costs. Therefore, it has become imperative for the company to pass on some impact of the above additional costs to customers through a price hike,” MSI said in a regulatory filing.

The price rise has been planned for January 2022, and the increase shall vary for different models, it added. The company sells a range of models, starting from hatchback Alto to SUV S-Cross, with prices starting from Rs 3.15 lakh to Rs 12.56 lakh, respectively (exshowroom, Delhi).

The auto major has already hiked the vehicle prices three times this year -- by 1.4 per cent in January, 1.6 per cent in April and 1.9 per cent in September, taking the total quantum to 4.9 per cent. MSI Senior Executive Director (Marketing and Sales) Shashank Srivastava said the company has been forced to take price hikes, with the increase in prices of essential commodities like steel, aluminium, copper, plastic and precious metals over the last one year.

“We are witnessing a really big increase in the commodity prices and therefore the company’s material cost, which accounts for around 75-80 per cent of the auto OEMs cost structure, has been impacted,” he noted. Srivastava said the company has been under pressure since last year but avoided taking big price hikes as it would have impacted the demand scenario in the market.

“As we took a big hit in profitability, and with commodity prices remaining high, we were left with no other choice but to take corrective actions. This year we have taken a price increase of 4.9 per cent in total, which is actually lower than the impact we are witnessing on account of high commodity prices,” he noted.