Tata Motors mulls hike in car prices as sales rise

Tata Motors is planning to increase prices of its passenger vehicles during the ongoing festive season to offset rising input cost even as its passenger vehicle sales grew 24 per cent year-on-year on the back of strong demand for Tiago.

Its export business grew by 29 per cent on account of strong demand for Tata Motors commercial vehicles while LCV sales continued its growth momentum at 19 per cent in September 2016.

''We will hike prices of our vehicles. Currently we are working out the details,'' reports quoted Mayank Pareek, president of Tata Motors' passenger vehicles business as saying.

Pareek cited rise in input costs across industry as reason for the proposed price hike. Also, some other auto manufactures have already hiked passenger vehicle prices ahead of festival sales.

Maruti Suzuki India, the country's largest car maker, had hiked prices of its various models by up to Rs20,000.

Mahindra & Mahindra has also hiked prices of some of its passenger and small commercial vehicles by up to 1 per cent from this month while Hyundai Motor India had, in August, announced a hike in prices by up to Rs20,000 across its models.

Tata Motors sells a range of passenger vehicles, including the entry-level small car Nano, newly launched hatchback Tiago and crossover vehicle Aria at a price range of Rs2.15 lakh to Rs16.3 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi)

Meanwhile, domestic sales of Tata commercial and passenger vehicles for September 2016 stood at 42,961 units, showing a growth of 5 per cent, over September 2015. The company continued to witness year-on-year growth in certain key segments in September 2016, with the company's Export business growing 29 per cent, passenger car sales grew by 27 per cent and LCVs continued to grow by 19 per cent.

Cumulative sales (including exports) of the company for the fiscal was at 25 per cent, higher by 7 per cent over 242,562 vehicles sold last year.