Discounts, impending price hikes seen driving up auto sales this month

Some analysts view price hikes announced by car makers as a sales strategy to clear their BS-IV inventory

Automobile manufacturers’ decision, amid rising input costs, to increase the price of their cars and two-wheelers from January 2020 is expected to push the sales of passenger vehicles by 2-4 per cent in December. Besides, discounts and other schemes being offered should also prod buyers to advance their car purchase, say dealers.

Among the companies that have announced price hikes from January are Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Nissan and BMW.

Though it was not easy to predict by how much the sales might increase this month, analysts, car companies and dealers were expecting decent annual growth in passenger car sales, said