Maruti Suzuki India Limited, leading automakers in India have announced a price hike across all segment from January 2020. The company currently sells a range of vehicles from the entry level Alto to the more premium XL6 priced from Rs.2.89 lakhs to Rs.11.47 lakhs.
Maruti has cited rising input costs as the reason for this price hike, which is an annual feature, while the updating of its engine lineup to meet the stringent BS6 emission standards set to come into force from 1st April 2020 is also an added reason for this increase.
The percentage of price hike will vary according to the models with the company not revealing the exact level of increase. New prices of all Maruti Suzuki cars of 2020 range will be revealed soon by the company in the coming days.
Like every other automaker in India, Maruti Suzuki is also faced with declining sales over the past many months though the automaker recently achieved the sales mark of 20 million (2 crores) passenger vehicles only recently, taking 37 years to reach this milestone. This is the first automaker in India to have crossed this figure. The first 1 crore was achieved in 29 years while the next 1 crore was reported in a record period of 8 years.
Maruti Suzuki, which had reported sales growth in October 2019 for the first time in the past 6 months, once again declared a decline in sales in November 2019. Domestic sales stood at 1,33,133 units in the past month, down 3.3 percent lower as compared to 1,43,890 units sold in the same month of the previous year. Total sales, which included passenger, commercial vehicles and exports stood at 1,50,630 units in November 2019 as against 1,53,539 units sold in November 2018, a decline of 1.9 percent.
Along with the price hike as announced, the company has extensive plans for the new year. 2019 saw the launch of the next gen WagonR, S-Presso and the XL6 premium MPV while the company has the new petrol Brezza and electric WagonR poised for launch in 2020.
Maruti might face decline in market share and in sales starting April 2020 – as the company has decided to discontinue sales of their diesel cars. Though Maruti sells more petrol cars, but they still sell about 3-4 lakh diesel cars a year. It remains to be seen if their over sales are affected post BS6 is implemented.
BS6 will result in a substantial price hike for diesel engine cars. This is why Maruti has decided to stay away from diesel BS6 for the time being. They have plans to launch diesel BS6 cars at a later stage, maybe by end 2020 or early 2021.
