Cars, SUVs turn costlier amid rising demand in festive season

Consumers will have to shell out more as automobile manufacturers have hiked prices of hot-selling cars and SUVs from October 1 amid rising demand in the festive season. Mahindra & Mahindra has raised the prices of its Thar, Scorpio, XUV 300 and XUV 700 models by up to Rs 81,000, while South Korean auto major Kia has increased the price of its popular SUV Seltos and multipurpose vehicle Carens by up to Rs 50,000. The country's second largest carmaker Hyundai has hiked the prices of its SUVs Venue and Tucson by up to Rs 48,000.

Japanese carmaker Honda has gone in for a more modest price increase in the price tag of its popular City and Amaze models by around Rs 8,000. Carmakers have been claiming that the prices of inputs had gone up last year but they decided not to pass on the cost to consumers at the time. Clearly, since the demand for these popular models has remained firm, with some of them even having a waiting list of customers, the auto majors have decided to go in for a price hike.

Kia India said that the company had introduced the earlier prices as an introductory offer and the revision has now been undertaken after six months in the case of its Seltos.Carmakers keep in an eye on each other's prices as they do not want to lose market share in a highly competitive market. It is, therefore, not unusual for them to follow each other once prices are increased.

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