Demand for Swift up before price hike

Maruti's newly launched Swift has seen a surge in demand before the price rise becomes effective.

Auto experts say the price rise announcement came two days before the hike, which created a scramble among the buyers to book the car before the prices rose.

Talking to Business Standard, Kavisha Motors Managing Director Ajay Sharma said with the introduction of easy car-finance schemes, more and more people were now opting for hatch-back cars, still. Due to its narrow roads and disorderly traffic, Agra was more of a two-wheeler town.

Sharma said between 150 and 200 cars were booked in the summer months at each of the two Maruti dealerships in Agra but lately this rate had dropped to barely 30-40 cars a month.

According to Sharma, this dreary situation changed abruptly in just a week of the Swift's launch, with the model becoming an instant hit among the buyers due to its new-age looks and better performance on the type of roads this part of the state has.

Besides, the low price, combined with luxuries like Airbags and power steering, made the car attractive for those who were earlier going for Hyundai's Getz, which was a tad too costlier than the Swift.

He said in the past week since the model's launch, the two Maruti dealerships in Agra--Kavisha Motors and Madhusudan Motors--had booked over 500 Swifts while the Alto and WagonR had suddenly taken a beating, with just about 50-55 cars booked in the same period.

But according to Sharma, the real boost in the Swift's bookings came yesterday, when Maruti announced a rise of Rs 10,000 on the sticker price of this model and in just two days, over 120 cars had been booked in the town, though due to a continuous short supply of cars by Maruti, they were able to deliver just 38 cars out of the over 500 cars booked.