Many carmakers to hike prices from Jan

With rupee falling against the USdollar in the recent months, car makers like Hyundai Motor, Ford, GeneralMotors and Toyota Kirloskar will hike the prices of their vehicles by up tothree per cent from January 1.

 

The country's second-largest car maker Hyundai Motor Indiawill raise the prices of its vehicles by 1.5-2 per cent from January next year.

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"The price increase will come into effect in January,2012. We are in the process of working out the specific increase on the variousmodels. Broadly, the increase will be 1.5-2 per cent across all models,"Hyundai Motor India Director Marketing and Sales Arvind Saxena said.

Rising inflation, higher fuel costs and the falling rupeecompelled the company to look at a price increase, he added.

Cars set to get costlier from Jan

Of these the rupee depreciation has been putting severepressure on firms importing a substantial amount of components from overseas.

It has fallen drastically over the past few months from thelevel of around Rs 45 to a US dollar, raising the cost of component imports.The Indian currency fell today by 30 paise to close at 51.71/72 against the USdollar on the Interbank Foreign Exchange on Wednesday.

Ford India also said it will raise prices of its entirerange of models by 2-3 per cent from next month.

"For the last three months, the rupee devaluation ishappening. The rising input costs are also hurting us. We have now decided toincrease the prices of all our products by 2-3 per cent," Ford IndiaExecutive Director (Marketing, Sales and Service) Nigel Wark said.

The company will hike the prices of its models from January1, 2012, he added.

On Tuesday, General Motors India announced to raise theprices by 1-2 per cent from January next year. It will hike the price of itsBeat diesel by Rs 15,000 from next month.

"In case of Beat diesel, we had an introductory price.Due to the current currency fluctuations and rising commodity prices, we haveno option but pass it on to consumers," GM India Vice President PBalendran had said.

Early this week, Toyota Kirloskar Motor too had announcedthat a price hike of 1.5-3 per cent in all models manufactured in India willtake place from January 1, 2012.

 

Other car-makers, including Maruti Suzuki India, are alsomulling price hike to offset rising input cost.