The Indian arm of Skoda Auto, a subdivision of the German automotive marque Volkswagen, announced to curtail discounts on its domestic fleet, comprising premium hatchback Fabia, Rapid, Laura and Superb saloons along with the sole Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) offering - Yeti. The surprising decision in the middle of Indian festival season underlines Skoda Auto India's ambitious stance of cutting its dependence on the prevalent Indian auto market practises.
Skoda Auto India, a completely owned subsidiary of the Czech automotive firm Skoda, has removed all discounts on its top selling Fabia hatch, besides considerably cutting the discounts offered on its entire sedan fleet and the Yeti SUV. Expressing his views on the company's shocking move in the middle of festivities, Sudhir Rao, Chief Operating Officer (COO), Skoda Auto India, said, "We are not going to increase discounts, but adopt a different strategy to sell our cars. We will keep our prices real without rendering any concessions. Though most of our cars would be more expensive than competition, we expect our superior brand and contemporary European technology to keep the sales momentum going."
Justifying the company's move, Rao further said, "Ever after reducing discounts across all our cars, we have managed to consistently increase sales, which have proved our point till now. We have enjoyed customers' confidence and would decide our future strategy after assessing the performance during the festive period."
The Indian festival season holds a great importance to all major automobile players in the country as it is during this period only, when the industry registers its biggest profits of the year. Usually the domestic car firms start offering attractive freebies, goodies and discounts on their products from October month, in order to catch the imagination of Indian consumers and lure them towards the company's retail outlets.
Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL), the country's favourite passenger car maker, is offering the domestic entry-level clientele with a whopping Rs. 35,000 off on the retail value of its erstwhile Alto model. Joining the league, popular Japanese auto player - Honda Cars India has capped its top seller City saloon with attractive goodies and freebies amounting close to Rs. 50,000. Further, Tata Motors also the country's largest automobile manufacturer has bundled up its mid-sized Manza saloon with numerous benefits worth up to Rs. 75,000.
Reportedly, Skoda Auto India witnessed an astounding surge of 24 per cent in the sales registered between the April and September months of the ongoing 2012-13 financial year. The company managed to pull off sales that stand at 17,015 units during first six months of the current fiscal, despite the fact that Indian passenger car market saw slack sales and overall slowdown in the same period. Skoda Auto India's sales climbed up by 38 per cent at 2,312 units during September 2012, when total car sales in the country dropped 5 per cent to 1.57 lac units as against the same period last year.
