Meredes-Benz Announces Price Hike Across Its Model Range From January 15 in India

New Delhi, Jan 11 (Agency) Luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz India on Friday said its cars would turn costlier from January 15 onwards owing to five per cent price hike across its models range. According to the company, the weakening of the Indian currency compared to the euro since the past six to seven months, combined with an increase in input costs, have been exerting significant pressure on the overall costs.

A combination of all these factors led to a significant increase in the company’s operational costs, prompting it to revise the ex-showroom of the entire model range and continue to build a sustainable and fundamentally strong business, the company said. According to Managing Director & CEO Martin Schwenk, the new price range of the company’s select vehicles will ensure the brand’s premium price positioning, assuring a sustainable growth both for the brand and the dealer partners, enabling continuation of the best-in-segment customer ownership experiences, equated with Mercedes Benz. Recently Fitch Ratings had mentioned that Indian automakers’ plans to pass on higher commodity prices to customers will dim the prospects for a demand recovery after December 2020, when the boost in some categories from pent-up demand and festive spending fades, and the economic impact from the coronavirus pandemic reasserts itself.

Accordingly, the ratings agency said pent-up demand after the gradual easing in the government’s lockdown measures helped India’s monthly wholesale volume of passenger vehicles (PV) return to growth after July 2020. The data from Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed PV wholesale volumes rising by 13 per cent on a YoY basis in the quarter ended September 2020. Besides, festive demand helped sustain the growth after September, but the pace slowed to 5 per cent YoY in November 2020 from 14 per cent in October 2020.