PUNE: It is the buyers’ car market in India. Customers are being wooed to buy cars by offering huge discounts as auto makers and dealers try to clear piled up inventory caused by an unprecedented slowdown in car sales.
From Maruti Suzuki, the biggest car manufacturer with wide car portfolio, the Korean brand Hyundai, the second largest car maker and Mahindra, the third, Honda Cars, the fourth, among others, are offering enticing benefits.
According to Hyderabad-based sources, Maruti Suzuki is offering discounts as high as 30 per cent on BS-6 vehicles. The discounts are further higher for BS-4 vehicles, whose manufacturing is set to end in April 2020 in the country.
Though there has been an slight up take in sales, the discounts are expected to continue for some more time.
Auto experts said car makers and dealers are under tremendous pressure to clear out the bloating passenger vehicle inventory with dealerships across the country within eight months as they would not be allowed to sell a BS-4 emission badged cars after April 2020 when mandatory the BS-6 car kicks in.
According to the Federa-tion of Automobile Dealers Associations or FADA also said passenger vehicle retail sales in July 2019 fell by 11 per cent. “Consumer sentiment and overall de-mand continued to be weak across all segments and most geographies,” said FADA president Ashish Harsharaj Kale told this newspaper.
