By Abrar Hamza
In a bid to tackle unending losses, the Toyota Motors, locally known as Indus Motor Company (IMC), on Wednesday, has raised its vehicles prices once more in a consecutive two months period of current year by up to Rs 75,000.
According to the new price list issued by the company, the increase would be effective from November 18, 2013. The prices have been increased continuously for the second time during the last few months.
The company attributes this hike to rupee depreciation against the dollar; however, industry players denied the alleged reason of the company saying that the company imports parts and accessories for its vehicles from Japan while the Japanese yen remained stable for last several months against the local currency.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Japanese yen has not crossed the value of Rs 1.19 against the rupee after September 15, 2012. It has been observed during past few years that when Japanese yen shows upward trend, local assemblers increase car prices on pretext of it, but, while yen is depreciating, despite reducing the prices they have linked cost to the dollar, an expert added.
All Pakistan Motor Dealers Association chairman informed Daily Times that Honda has also decided to increases Civic price by Rs 40,000 and the City price by Rs 25,000; however the company has not announced it officially.
To recall, on August 30, 2013, the IMC had increased its three models’ prices by around Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000 on the pretext of adjusting higher dollar value. Now, it has come out again with another price hike of the year by increasing its three variants models prices from Rs 21,000 to Rs 75,000.
With the recent price hikes, the Vigo Champ G, price has increased by Rs 75,000 and reached Rs 3,608,500 from Rs 3,533,500. Similarly, Rs 35,000 addition in current price of Altis has taken its price to Rs 2,177,500 from Rs 2,142,500. It is important to mention here that the Altis was available at Rs 1,219,000 in August 2005.
The most prominent passenger car of the IMC, Toyota Corolla saw Rs 21,000 addition in its current prices this time, subsequently the new price ex-factory price of Toyota Corolla XLI LE will be Rs 1,607,500 and XLI 1.3L MT will be available at Rs 1,592,500. Likewise, Toyota Corolla GLI AT 1.6L L price will be Rs 1,917,500 and GLI AT 1.6L S will be available for Rs 1,792,500.
An analyst said that IMC is trying to recover the losses witnessed last year due to huge influx of used imported cars by frequent price increase this year as the import of used cars has reduced significantly owing to age restriction limit imposed by the government last December.
Source: www.dailytimes.com.pk