Sagging sales and increased competition have forced the car manufacturers to offer a slew of incentives to attract the customers during the festive season. On offer to rev up sales of auto makers during Puja are schemes promising cash discounts, free insurance and even petrol cost of a year on petrol variants of some vehicle models, whose sales have dipped sharply due to rising petrol prices.
“Like other companies on their cars, Tata Motors too has announced promotions on the Tata Nano, comprising a special offer ranging from Rs 15, 000 to Rs 20, 000 on the price of the car with extremely low down-payments of Rs 15, 000 to Rs 22, 000 & high tenure financing up to 60 months via special arrangements,” said a Tata Motors spokesperson.
“And likewise, for our other passenger cars, we are offering two schemes, one is a special cash discount and fixed down-payment scheme and the other is cash discount and fixed interest rate scheme. The cash discount ranges between Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000, depending on the brand. Customers can book a car with low down- payment from Rs 25,000 onwards. This includes all taxes, insurance and registration expenses. This package has just been introduced and is a limited-period offer,” added the Tata Motors official.
Similarly the Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL), the country's largest car manufacturers has also introduced cash benefits for its customers this puja season
“Maruti is giving a cash benefit ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20, 000 both for the diesel and petrol variants. This year we will be giving corporate benefits to the customers employed in banks, insurance companies, lawyers, doctors etc. It will be in addition to the cash benefits ranging from Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000. Moreover , if someone exchanged the used Maruti cars through Maruti Suzuki’s True Value store, then he will be having an additional benefit which ranges from Rs 10, 000 to Rs 20,000 and will continue till the end October,” said Sushmita Pattnaik, General Manager (Sales), Sky Automobiles, a city based dealer.
The Indian arm of the US automobile giant Ford Motors has joined the other carmakers to attract the customers. “We are doing well in the diesel variant. To speed up the sales in the petrol variant we are giving free insurance of about Rs 12,000 in Ford Figo as the petrol price have gone up,” said AK Mohanty, General Manager, Ford Odisha.
“We are giving cash discounts up to Rs 43,000 for petrol variants and a special discount for i-20 model. In addition to discount up to Rs 18, 000, we are giving one year free petrol amounting to Rs 12, 800 in i-20 and all the offers will continue till October last week,” said Sanjay Rath, Sales Manager, OSL Hyundai.
It may be noted domestic passenger car sales stood 144,516 units in August, 2011, as against 160,713 units in the same month last year as per the figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) this month.
