Hero MotoCorp to increase prices of its products by up to Rs 1,500 from January 1

Two-wheeler market leader Hero MotoCorp on Wednesday, December 16, 2020, said it will increase the prices of its products by up to Rs 1,500, with effect from January 1, 2020. The decision was taken to partially offset the impact of commodity costs.

Hero MotoCorp in a regulatory filing at BSE, said, "In order to partially offset the impact of the commodity costs, we will be increasing the prices of our products by up to Rs. 1500, with effect from January 1, 2021. The increase will vary across models, and the exact quantum will be communicated to our dealers in due course."

The world's largest two-wheeler manufacturer has said that there has been a steady rise in commodity costs across the spectrum, including steel, aluminium, plastics, and precious metals. It further stated that it has already accelerated its savings programme under the Leap-2 umbrella, and will continue to work on mitigating the impact, to reduce the burden on the customers and protect our margins.

For the July-September quarter, Hero MotoCorp reported an 8.99 per cent year-on-year increase in standalone net profit at Rs 953.45 crore, from Rs 874.80 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. The revenue from operations stood at Rs 9,367.34 crore, growing 23.7 per cent from Rs 7,570.70 crore in the year-ago period.

The decision related to the price hike by the company was announced a day after Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) announced a price hike of its passenger and commercial vehicles. M&M on Tuesday announced that it will increase prices of its passenger and commercial vehicles from January 1, 2021, citing a rise in commodity prices and various other input costs. The company will issue details of the price increase across different models in due course.

Other automakers who have announced a price hike of its prices are Maruti Suzuki India and Ford India. They have also stated that they would be increasing prices of their respective vehicles from January to mitigate the adverse impact of rising input costs, especially raw materials and commodity prices.