Car discounts: Car makers have been pretty much in the slow lane so far this year but are looking to shift gears in the festive season. After all, that’s when a third of all cars are sold. No fireworks are expected since consumer sentiment isn’t too upbeat at a time when fuel prices are soaring.

So far, the new Santro from Hyundai is the only big-bang launch being talked about. Mahindra & Mahindra’s all-new Marazzo was unveiled in September. No new models are expected from other stables. But, the good news is that rural demand in general has been good.

“Demand in rural areas has generally been stronger than in urban markets partly because the penetration of auto sales in some of the interior areas is relatively low,” RC Bhargava, chairman, Maruti Suzuki, confirmed. Given car makers like Maruti sell about 40-50% of their volumes in rural areas, the festive season should prove to be a good one.

But the company isn’t leaving everything to luck. It is offering attractive discounts —on the older models—Alto, Wagon R and Celerio—discounts are being doubled from `20,000 to `40,000. Hyundai is betting big on the re-entry of its popular hatchback Santro. At its peak, the earlier Santro sold over 11,000 units/month. On other models like the Grand i10, the cash discount ranges between `40,000 to `50,000, depending on the variant. Last Diwali, dealers offered a discount of Rs 20,000 on the hatchback and this time, a Rs 40,000 discount will put the starting price at `4.9 lakh. On the Hyundai Verna, a sedan, customers can hope for a `20,000 cash discount and also Rs 30,000 worth of corporate discounts.

Honda Car India isn’t giving cash discounts but there is an exchange bonus, extended warranty, discounts on insurance.

The company is also throwing in a chance to win a fully paid trip to London and Paris. Between April and September, the company has sold 94,419 units better than the 91,269 units sold in the corresponding period in 2017-18.

Utility vehicle manufacturer M&M is offering hefty discounts on the XUV500, KUV100 and Scorpio of `15,000, `48,000 and `63,000, respectively, during this festival season. The KUV100, micro SUV, is being retailed starting at `4.9 lakh while SUVs XUV 500 and Scorpio are available from `15 lakh and `11.2 lakh.

The passenger vehicle market has expanded by just 6.8% y-o-y in the first half of 2018-19 due to a dip in sales in August (-2.4% y-o-y) and September (-5.6% y-o-y).Dealers in some parts of the country say sales have been sluggish over the past few months and consequently, inventories are higher than they might have otherwise been at this time of the year. A Delhi-based dealer for Maruti said that although the sentiment was not overly strong, consumers may be incentivised to make purchases during the festive season if the discounts were attractive enough.

Mayank Pareek, president, passenger vehicles, Tata Motors, said he has asked dealers not to give to cash discounts during the festival season. “Our cars are doing really well and we expect the festive season to be better than last time,” Pareek said. Between April and September, sales volumes have been 1,19,193 units compared with 92,101 units in the same period of 2017-18.

Between April and Septemer, total sales were up 6.8% y-o-y over the same period in 2017-18.Total sales of passenger vehicles in the country in 2017-18 were 3.2 million units, up 7.8%.