India’s largest commercial vehicle manufacturer Tata Motors announced on Monday that it plans to hike prices by up to 2 per cent across its commercial vehicle range from April 1, 2025. The increase in prices was to “offset the rise in input costs”, and would “vary as per individual model and variant,” stated the automaker.
This comes weeks after Tata Motors posted a 7 per cent year-on-year sales dip in February, selling an overall 32,533 commercial vehicles. Domestic sales of commercial vehicles for the month slumped 8 per cent to 30,797 units, with the SCV cargo and pickup category posting a significant slide in sales of 20 per cent, y-o-y.
In line with the industry trend, rival Ashok Leyland posted a 4 per cent decline in domestic sales for February at 15,879 units.
This is a worrying trend for the market leader, for the last reported quarter (Q3 FY2025) saw Tata Motors’s total domestic commercial vehicle sales slip 1 per cent y-o-y to 91,260 units. In the quarter before it (Q2 FY2025), the total domestic commercial vehicle sales fell by a staggering 19 per cent year-on-year.
While Tata Motors Executive Director Girish Wagh assured that commercial heavy vehicle sales were “propelled by a resurgence in construction and mining activities post-monsoon, plus the festive season demand”, the downward trend still continues.
The numbers seem to be speaking for themselves. Both Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland have seen small, but consistent slump in monthly sales year-on-year. A price hike now could make things worse for the commercial vehicle market in India, as the automakers look for ways to arrest losses.
