NEW DELHI: With commodity prices showing no signs of abating, year 2022 is going two be costlier on many fronts — especially if you were planning to buy a new car or a house.
India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki on Thursday said it would increase vehicle prices from January to offset the impact of the rise in raw material costs.
It is a common practice for automakers to go for a price hike of 2-4% in January every year.
However this year, buyers will feel the pinch more as most leading automakers have gone for at least three price hikes in the past one year.
For example, Maruti had increased the prices of its vehicles by 1.4% in January 2021, 1.6% in April and then again in September by 1.9% — taking the total quantum of increase to 4.9%.
Sources said Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra and Hyundai will issue similar announcements soon. Luxury automakers Mercedes Benz and Audi have already announced price hikes of 2% and 3%, respectively, from January 2022.
MSIL’s senior executive director (marketing and sales) Shashank Srivastava had recently said the firm would be forced to hike vehicle prices with steel, aluminium, copper, plastic and precious metals becoming costlier.
Steel prices, which stood at Rs 38 per kg last April-May, shot up to Rs 77 a kg this year. Similarly, aluminium which was available for $1,700-1,800 a tonne last year, now costs $2,700-2,800 per tonne.
If unchecked, this surge in metal prices, along with a surge in cement prices, is going to jack up property prices as well.
“Housing developers’ profit margins are already wafer-thin and the rising inflationary trend of basic input costs such as cement, steel and labour is a real challenge… Future price hikes seem inevitable,” said Prashant Thakur, director & head of research at Anarock Group.
Real estate industry body Credai had recently estimated housing prices to jump 10-15% in view of rising costs of construction raw materials.
Cement price to touch Rs 400 per bag: Crisil
The retail price of cement, which has risen Rs 10-15 per bag pan-India since August, is likely to swell by another Rs 15-20 over the next few months, ratings agency Crisil said in a report on Thursday.
The price could touch an all-time high of Rs 400 per bag this fiscal due to costly inputs such as coal and diesel, it added