Car makers to not offer any discounts in December

Christmas time is considered as the next best time after Diwali for discounts on the passenger cars and also the best time for the customers to drive their favorite car home. But this time those who were looking forward to this festive month for discount will have to face disappointment. The auto mobile market in India is on boom with the demand standing at more than 30 per cent while the inventory count is dropping drastically. The December month is considered to be the discount time for the car buyers with yearly sales on cars, cashback offers, schemes like free insurance and discounted interest rates. With these offers, the car makers have been luring the Indian customers in the auto market.

Mayank Pareekh, the executive officer in Marketing and Sales in Maruti Suzuki India, said that the auto makers in India have production constraints. The automobile manufacturers have also reduced the maintenance time on their respective facilities. The inventory with the car manufacturers is also minimal. He added that, the demand has accelerated to 32 per cent while the inventory remains low and as a result discounts do not seem likely to be coming this year. He later added that, if there will be discounts on cars, it will be minimal, regional and model specific.

In 2009, December, the Hyundai Motor India provided discounts on Hyundai Santro and Hyundai i10 and  reduced the price by Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000. The Indian auto giant, Tata Motors also offered discount of Rs 10,000 to Rs 60,000 on its models other than Tata Indigo, Tata Nano and Tata Manza. The US based auto mobile maker, General Motors provided discount of Rs 47,000 on the small car Chevrolet Spark while the MUV Chevrolet Tavera discount was for Rs 70,000 and Chevrolet Captiva price was reduced by Rs 1.5 lacs. Ford Motors, the American automobile maker offered discounts on the sedan Ford Fiestaand  reduced the price by Rs 55,000. Maruti India, offered discounts of Rs 16,000 to Rs 30,000 on Maruti A-star, Maruti Wagon R and Maruti Omni.

Arvind Saxena, the director of marketing and sales at the Hyundai Motors said that, the company does not plan to give discount in December this year. Hyundai does not have high inventory to equalize it with the demand.

However, the customers look for lucrative deals via dealers so that when the car buyers wish to sell their car, they may not suffer losses with the current year price tag of the car. In the used car industry, the difference amount calculated between the December and the coming January price is the discounted price in the used car market.

P Balendran, the Vice President of General Motors said that, the demand has raised this year but the constraint in supply still exists since there are order backlog on various models. To utilize the maximum production capacity, the company has also cut short its facility's maintenance time which was earlier eight days now reduced to five days annually. He cleared the air and said that, before the December sales starts shooting , the company has already decided on no discounts this year on its cars.

The automobile sector accelerated to 38 per cent in the festive month of October. The Indian economy is rising quickly which has lured the Indian buyer. The sales till October have grown to 34 per cent and the demand is still rising.

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