GM, Toyota, Ford gears-up fir yet another car price hike in India

Leading automakers including Toyota, General Motors and Ford are gearing up for yet another price hike in the Indian market. In last few months, the easy availability of car loans has fueled the demand for cars in India and auto biggies are now eying on capitalizing on this high demand by increasing price of their respective cars in the country. According to the industry sources, price rise may fall anywhere between Rs 1,500 to Rs 20,000 in the national capital.

According to Mr Sandeep Singh, deputy managing director, marketing, at Toyota Kirloskar Motor, the company is experiencing cost pressures from various commodities as well as the currency fluctuations with a stronger Yen and Dollar that is making component sourced from abroad as well as imported cars costlier, forcing Toyota to charge more. The company has already announced that it is going to hike price of its popular cars Innova and Corolla Altis by Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000 respectively. While on the other hand General Motors India has hiked the prices of its cars by up to 3%, which accounted for a hike of Rs 14,500 in the price of its premium sedan Chevrolet Cruze.

It is to be mentioned here that this is the fourth time in the year 2010 when car prices are going to be increased in the Indian market. The auto industry, first witnessed the price hike in January due to the increasing raw material cost, which followed another increase in price in March and April due to an increase of 2% in the excise duty and implementation of new BS-IV emission norms, respectively.

Mr Pawan Goenka, head of Mahindra & Mahindra’s automotive sector as well as president at Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, said in a statement that the huge demand and surging sales has helped Indian auto industry to absorb high commodities burden till now but now the companies will have to pass on some burden to the customers.

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