With an aim to boost customer demand in the upcoming festive season, India’s largest automaker Maruti Suzuki India on Wednesday said that it will reduce the price of select models by ₹5,000. This comes days after finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced cuts in the corporate tax rate. The company’s chairman R.C. Bhargava had recently said that he expects better sales in September as compared to last month. This reduction, the company said, will be over and above the current promotional offers for Maruri Suzuki’s vehicle range.
The discount applies to models such as Alto 800, Alto K10, Swift Diesel, Celerio, Baleno Diesel, Ignis, Dzire Diesel, Tour S Diesel, Vitara Brezza and S-Cross.
The company said that starting Wednesday, it has decided to offer discounts on ex-showroom price across the country. “Welcoming the government’s initiative to revive the demand in the automobile industry, Maruti Suzuki India today announced to proactively and voluntarily share the benefits of corporate tax reduction with its customers,” the automaker said in a statement.
The company added it is optimistic that the price reduction will bring down the cost of acquisition especially for the entry-level customers. “This announcement around the festive season will help boost customer sentiment and revive the market to create demand,” Maruti said.
The automaker had already announced a range of discounts to attract customers amid the worst slowdown facing the auto industry in two decades. The company had earlier announced discounts of up to ₹1 lakh on vehicles sold through its NEXA and ARENA showrooms for September. NEXA retails premium models like Baleno, S-Cross and Ciaz and ARENA—its trendy and tech-enabled showroom— sells Dzire and Vitara Brezza.
Domestic sales of Maruti Suzuki fell 34.3% in August—one of the steepest monthly drops for the company. The company expects some uptick in sales in the festive season from its new launch—the S-Presso, its latest offering in the small hatchback segment. The launch is due on September 30. Last month, the company launched XL6, a multi-purpose vehicle, but it didn’t do much to revive sales.
