Commercial vehicle makers including Tata Motors Ltd, Volvo Trucks India Ltd and Ashok Leyland Ltd have hiked or are considering hiking prices of trucks by up to 4% this month to offset rising input costs, even as the segment saw return of demand, reports PTI.
Leading automaker Tata Motors has increased prices of all heavy vehicles (16 tonnes and above) and some models in the lower tonnage (3.5-7 tonnes) by 1% from this month.
Volvo Trucks India has hiked prices by 3%-4%. "Prices have gone up on account of high input costs, especially steel and rubber," Volvo Trucks India president Somnath Bhattacharjee said at the 10th Auto Expo in New Delhi.
Mr Bhattacharjee, who is also on the board of the Volvo-Eicher joint venture, added that prices of Eicher products have also been increased by 2% for the same reasons.
The Hinduja Group-promoted Ashok Leyland said that it will hike prices of its commercial vehicles before March this year.
Ashok Leyland managing director R Seshasayee said that there has been a surge in demand of commercial vehicles in the last two quarters and the company expected to close this fiscal at total sales of about 62,000-63,000 units.
Commercial vehicle makers, who last year were forced to shut operations temporarily to cut operating costs, saw sales turn positive in August 2009. Sales jumped over 130% in November last year.
Prices of steel, a major input, have gone up by about $60-$80 to over $550 a tonne in the past two months due to rise in demand and increase in input costs.
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