December has become a good time to buy a car as auto majors, such as Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai, roll out major discounts of 10% -15%. These major discounts are present across most models of Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai including the popular ones Elite i20 and Swift. Although, the number of cars sold has witnessed a major increase, the sale of passenger car in the year 2016 is expected to fall short of the estimated target of 3 million units.
Dealers wish to clear their inventory before the year-end and are, therefore, offering more discounts than that were offered during Diwali. Discounts offered on the petrol variant of Celerio were close to Rs 12,000 during Navratri and Diwali and they have now been increased to Rs 19,000 – Rs 20,000 in metros. Also discounts on Swift now amount to Rs 15,000, almost 2.5x of what was being offered earlier. Also, the popular compact sedan of Maruti, Swift Dzire is now being offered with a discount of Rs 10,000 to Rs 11,000 almost twice the previous levels of Rs 5000- RS 6000.
A Maruti dealer from Mumbai said December has always witnessed discounts. He added that due to demonetisation, the prices have been further dropped. Also, a lot of dealers are offering 100% on-road funding, zero down-payment scheme and exchange offers to attract more customers and increase sales.