New Delhi: Following price hikes by several automakers in India, including Tata, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Renault and more, General Motors India has also announced its own price hike. The American carmaker only has models from Chevrolet in India, but has still seen significant success. Chevrolet has grown to become one of the biggest automakers in the country, in the same league has bigwigs like Hyundai, Tata, Mahindra and even Maruti Suzuki. This has largely been due to the Chevrolet Beat, Tavera and Cruze, but its other models have also seen strong sales. Now, with 2016 coming to a close, the US carmaker’s models will also get dearer by up to INR 30,000.
General Motors India today said it will hike prices of its vehicles from next month to offset rise in inputs costs and adverse impact of foreign exchange fluctuation. “Effective from January 1, 2017, the estimated price increase on all the Chevrolet cars will range between 1 per cent to 3 per cent depending on the product and variant which will make vehicles approximately Rs 30,000 higher in 2017,” the company said in a statement. Commenting on the development, GM India Vice President of Sales & Network Hardeep Brar said: “In the adverse market conditions, the price hike is necessitated on account of higher manufacturing cost as the input prices surge year-on-year.”
Brar further said, “In line with the industry practice and rising manufacturing and other administrative cost, we proposed a price increase across our product line in India.” With the increase in Foreign Exchange rates and high inflationary cost, there has been a considerable increase in raw material pricing leading to higher manufacturing cost in the sector, which is the primary reason for the price hike, he added.
GM India sells a range of vehicles from the hatchback Beat at a starting price of INR 3.95 lakh to SUV Trailblazer tagged at INR 24.37 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). Already companies, including Hyundai Motor India, Tata Motors, Toyota, Nissan, Renault and Mercedes-Benz have announced that they would hike prices of their vehicles from January.
PTI