The market has been very disappointing lately. Most of the automobile manufacturing giants in the country have seen a loss in their annual performance report. The sales have dropped considerably while the production cost and import duty have become even costlier for the company with the fall of Indian rupee. All the companies are desperately trying to take their sales bar into the profitable zone. Due to this, the market is over flowing with all the possible discounts and schemes that can attract customers potentially. Some of the baits planned for the customers are cash discounts, after sales services, low interest rates, holiday trips, exchange offers etc.
An official from Tata Motors has revealed that “Tata Nano customers can avail an exchange scheme which also has a 2-wheeler exchange programme. In the hatchback segment we are currently offering an exchange scheme on the Tata Vista. In addition we are associating with HDFC and TMF (Tata Motor Finance) to offer a 3.99 per cent interest rate on the Tata Manza Club class”. Apart from this, a bonus amount of Rs 30,000 is being offered on the Safari Storme for existing Tata customers. There is also an exchange bonus worth Rs 15,000 on Sumo.
Maruti Suzuki India has also planned a few schemes to bring customers to its dealerships. A cash discount of maximum Rs 50,000 is being offered on the sedan SX4 diesel variant. Maruti has also declared that a discount of Rs 30,000 can be availed on the purchase of any variant of WagonR. Alto 800 will see a discount of Rs 28,000 while the Alto K10 will see a discount of Rs 24,000. All the models of Ritz will be tagged with a discount of Rs 25,000. The Omni van will receive a discount of only Rs 7,500. The latest of the Maruti’s venture, Maruti Ertiga, will be offered with a discount of Rs 25,000 on its petrol variant.
Maruti Dzire and Swift are not being offered at discounted rates. To increase the sales, company has launched face lifted and upgraded models of both the cars.
Coming to Honda cars and Ford India, these companies are attracting customers, or at least trying to, by offering free car insurance on their newly purchased cars. This offer is applicable on most of their models. An official at Honda said that “We are giving insurance at Re 1 on certain variants of City and Brio, as part of sales promotion. However, there is no offer currently on Brio Automatic, CRV and top end of City and even Amaze.” Amaze is the new Sedan launched by Honda cars.
Volkswagen instead of offering discounts and exchange offers has come up with a totally unique policy. It is offering its customers a great EMI facility. As per the scheme, a customer needs to pay 20% of the whole price of the vehicle and the remaining amount of 80% needs to be paid in 36 monthly installments. This “just perfect’ scheme has been launched for its best sellers in India, Polo and Vento. Therefore, a customer can purchase a Polo with a monthly installment of Rs 9,999 and can get a Vento with an EMI of Rs 14,699 only.
All these efforts have been put in by the car manufacturers due to poor market performance in the past few months. The stats say that the car sales have dropped for 8 consecutive months and the decline in sales in the month of June 2013 was of 9%. A slow moving Indian economy has resulted in lack of enthusiasm in the Indian customers to own a car which has reduced the car sales.
The latest stats revealed by SIAM (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers) have showed that the car sales in the domestic market were 1,53,450 units in the month of June last year. This year the sales have dropped to 1,39,632 units
Therefore this automobile body is urging the government to offer some stimulus package for this sector of industry.