Maruti Suzuki to substantially hike prices from April

The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Monday said it will "substantially" increase the prices of its entire product portfolio from next month in order to offset the impact of high input costs.

The auto major said the exercise would cover its entire product range in the country.

"We had emission norm conversion from April last year.

“It involved a lot of costs so we had thought that we would increase the prices but somehow the market situation last year wasn't so great so we did not increase prices at that time.”

“But now input costs have increased dramatically, especially of the raw materials like steel, plastic and the rare metals," MSI executive director (sales and marketing) Shashank Srivastava told PTI.

It was to offset the impact of the cost escalations that the company had hiked prices in January this year, he added.

"We were trying to stimulate demand after the pandemic and that is why we kept the price hike in January to a very small amount hoping that the input costs would nor remain high and come down.

“But the projections now are that the raw material cost would remain high in the next few quarters.

“It is therefore with great reluctance we have decided to increase the prices from April," Srivastava noted.

He added that the quantum of the increase would vary depending upon the models.

"We are figuring out the exact number but there will be a substantial increase because the cost has gone up due to emission and safety norm changes," Srivastava said.

He said the company did not pass an increase in input costs to buyers in 2019-20 and the current fiscal.

Earlier in a regulatory filing, the car market leader said that over the past year, the cost of the company's vehicles has been impacted adversely due to an increase in various input costs.

"Hence, it has become imperative for the company to pass on some impact of the above additional cost to customers through a price increase in April 2021," it added.

The price increase shall vary for different models, it added.

On January 18 this year, the automaker had announced to hike prices of select models by up to Rs 34,000 due to a rise in input costs.

MSI sells a range of models from entry-level hatchback Alto to S-CROSS, priced between Rs 2.99 lakh and Rs 12.39 (ex-showroom prices Delhi) lakh, respectively.

Photograph: Kind courtesy, Maruti Suzuki