Pak Suzuki raises prices of Cultus variants

Cites technological improvements as reason behind increase

KARACHI: Barely a month after it raised prices for some of its variants, Pak Suzuki Motor Company Limited has now hiked the price tag for its Cultus variants following some technological improvements.

According to a notice sent by the company to its dealers on Thursday, the Japanese car assembler increased the price of Cultus VXL model from Rs1.855 million to Rs1.865 million and Cultus AGS variant from Rs1.975 million to Rs1.985 million.

Prices of both models have been inflated by Rs10,000 which the company attributed to the introduction of an infotainment system in the said variants.

“We, at Pak Suzuki, always focus on bringing product augmentation to meet the ever-increasing expectation of the customers,” said Pak Suzuki Marketing and Sales Department Functional Head Amir Shaffi in the notification. “To continue this philosophy, we are delighted to introduce Suzuki Cultus with a new upgraded infotainment system.”

Highlighting the features of the new system the notice added that it had MP5 capacitive multi-touch screen with eight-inch display, Bluetooth, auxiliary, USB, radio, SD card slot and screen mirroring option.

“In China, this is a common technology found in cars priced far below than the mentioned rates,” said an industry source on the condition of anonymity. “These car companies are not innovating. In fact, they are selling decades old variants in the country.” He lamented that they had hiked the prices following introduction of one new feature.

Suzuki increased car prices late in December 2019 despite a decline in cost of imported parts owing to recovery in rupee against the US dollar during the second half of the year.  It raised prices of different variants by Rs49,000-90,000 which came into effect from January 1, 2020. However, the company did not raise the price of Cultus at the time.

Earlier this month, Indus Motor Company had also hiked prices of its XLi and GLi variants. In December 2019, the auto sector reported a 38% drop in sales compared to the same period of 2018.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2020.

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