(Reuters) -India’s top carmaker Maruti Suzuki and smaller rival JSW MG Motor on Friday said they will hike car prices to tackle rising raw material and operational costs, joining Hyundai Motor India.
Maruti plans to hike prices by up to 4%, depending on the model, while JSW MG Motor – a joint venture between SAIC Motor and JSW Group – plans to hike prices by up to 3% across products.
Both will be effective January 2025.
Indian automakers are grappling with higher costs from rising global commodity prices, high import duties on raw materials, and disruptions in supply chains.
Many carmakers, like Maruti, have also struggled with slowing sales as demand for new cars has cooled after successive years of surging sales.
Maruti’s shares rose as much as 1.7% after the announcement, its second one this year. They closed 1.2% higher on Friday. The company had hiked its car prices by 0.45% in January this year.
Maruti is India’s biggest carmaker, with a market share of about 42%. MG Motor accounts for about 1% of the passenger vehicle market.
Newly listed Hyundai India, the country’s second-largest carmaker by market share, said on Thursday it would raise prices across its models by up to 25,000 rupees ($295.37).
($1 = 84.6410 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam and Ananta Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan and Janane Venkatraman)
