Top car manufacturers offer lucrative discounts to push sales

The current slowdown in the Indian auto market has hit the car industry drastically. The car manufacturers like Fiat, Maruti Suzuki India, Hyundai India and General Motors are offering substantial discounts of about 20% and minimal interest rates to increase their sales. The slow car-market coupled with the flurry of launches of late are the major factors driving the auto majors to take this step. The discounts and the schemes are offered on the petrol cars due to the rising demand for the diesel cars leaving the former to stale in the sales outlets. Fiat Punto, Chevrolet Spark and Hyundai Accent are to mention a few, which are being offered with deep discounts, especially on their petrol variants to ramp up their sales.

Auto companies like Honda and Skoda India are offering their cars at low interest rates of under 9% and 9.99% to lure the customers, as the bank interest rates on the car loans stand to be around 14%. The difference is being borne by the companies in order to clear out their car models from their sales outlets. The lukewarm sales during the festival season which is otherwise observed to peak has got the car manufacturers worried. It has been observed that people are opting for a new car as opposed to a used car as the new cars are offered at a sub retail price with the ex-showroom price slashed down, thus making the new cars cheaper. Moreover, the financial institutions also levy 2-3% higher interest rates on the used cars in comparison with the old car interest rates. For example, a customer willing to buy a used Maruti Swift car might as well go for a Maruti Estillo which is available at Rs 2.65 lakhs excluding the taxes, with one-fifth amount cut-down from its ex-showroom price. In any case, the consumer might be willing to purchase a car with low price at the same time with the advanced technology over an old car.

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