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Don't know exactly , where the Sales of Tata nano are headed ( South or North ??) but they have decided to increase Prices by 4 % thanks to increased Steel prices and plastics. Between Going by the Complaints of poor plastic quality in TATA car's , don,t know , where the plastics quality will head now??

Source - Tata motors to hike Nano prices by up to 4 pc - India Business - Business - The Times of India

Nano is already not 1 Lakh car anymore. 4pc hike means it would be close to 5pc hike by the time it reached customer's hand. One of my colleuge has a nano, he was proud of it when he drove me for a short test drive experience.

After the amazing test ride on the nano, i took him over to my i10 and made him sit inside! all he said way *dude, i feel i wasted 2 lakhs on the nano, how much would I get if I were to sell it now?* fromn riches to raggs! no office ment to any nano owners, but just my experience.

4pc increase! might dent the nano sales.

If you are made to sit inside an i20 or Jazz, you will have a similar 'wow' reaction. i10 costs twice the Nano. The comparison is unfair. Ya, if a Nano user sits in an 800 or Alto and feels this way, then maybe the reaction is justified.

+1.

i don't see anything wrong in the price hike. When every manufacture are doing a hike, TATA too can.

But I am thinking if the whole basic idea of Mr.TATA is still valid?

Car at the price of a 2 wheeler... No more.

I dont really think a 4% hike will dent sales of the Nano.

That idea has long become invalid. Now, the Nano is just an M800 competitor and another addition to the lowest segment where M800 was ruling the roost.

My immediate thoughts were to Bajaj's small car. If the early industry entrant like Nano could not be sold around 1L, how would Bajaj price their car when it hits the market?

However, the catch that I see is "model"; probably Tata keeps the price of base variant unchanged while they increase the price of other models.

@ mutantx

I agree, Heres my experience!!

I had a friend who drives an i10, then he went ahead and sat in a Figo, he too felt the same way as your friend, albeit this time he felt he wasted 4 lacs. Better even Hyundai went ahead and raised prices a couple of months back due to rise in input costs, how dare they do that.

Pity, what a rare commodity common sense is nowadays.

I am sure that had you thought about the rising plastic and steel prices, you wouldn't have thought about which way Tata Motors were heading. Do us a favour and visit a Tata dealership to check out the Manza and Vista. Instead of being an armchair critic, experience the current products before passing judgment. Less than a couple of weeks back, I checked out the Vista, trust me, it has better plastics than the Figo.

Correct.

Thats why I dont want to sit in a Civic anytime soon :D

Seriously, I dont think Nano was ever a 1 lakh car - was it? Tata hiking rates and all is ok, but they seriously need to do something about their image. The catching fire reports have not helped at all. And I get the impression, all the drama about pre-booking, making customers wait and wait, has only put people off.

If I cannot go into a showroom, put the money on the table and expect to have my hands on it in a reasonable amount of time, it just isn't even in my thinking.

Nano was advertised as 2500$ car (at the time when 1 USD = 40rs). When Nano was announced, I was in germany. There was soo much expectations from europe! every german banker whom I talked to used to get excited about the nano. I was skeptical since i knew well about the Indian car scene, pricing gimmicks and cost of raw materials.

When nano was launched, I wasnt too thrilled about the pricing (excl road tax). Some-where I felt TATA missed the sweet spot.

4% hike in prices is surely sensitive to a car which is priced at 1.7L - 2.1L On-Road. The initial booking numbers were mostly from ethusiastic people who wanted to see & feel how the cheapest Indian car would feel like.

If TATA nano is seen the roads like the Indicas / SWIFTs / Wagon Rs/ Alto or i10, then 4% hike wouldnt have hurt that much. Having said that, let us wait for sales figures a month after they have hiked the prices

It seems Tata want to promote other small cars like Alto,Beat,even old 800s by hiking its price. As it was told above let us see the sales figure of the popular car or the Car of the year 2009.

$100 in 1920 is equal to $1000 in 2010.
$1000 in 1980 is equal to ~$2,600 in 2010.

Again after making promise for 100,000 rupee car in 2004, Tata managed to deliver on promise in 2009 despite 9-14% inflation .

I tried to adjust inflation manually using CPI and WPI statistics, and turns out 100,000 rupees in 2004 is equal to ~161,500 Rupees in 2010 after adjusting inflation.

There is no magic that Tata can do to prevent yearly price increase which happens due to inflation, they promised a lakhtakiya and they delivered on the that by providing one for what was 100,000 in 2004 when the promise was made.

Also, 800 is not a competition any more as it can no longer be sold all over India.

Dont think the 4% is any significant increase given the fact that the nearest competitor is a sweet lakh costlier than Nano.
I mean we have to give a chance to Tatas, they are bound to increase the price owing to the inflation, every has done that including the Swift. But good on Tatas to guarantee the initial 1 lakh customers of the promised price.

Well, as much as the price increase is inevitable, the criticism is too. That's because TATA chose to market the car with a price point (Rs.1 lakh) unlike others who market based on features,comfort,etc. But may be this marketing effort gave them a worldwide exposure very quickly and it is all worth it. But it could be a drawback in the longterm..

I don't remember anyone else succeeding with price range marketing. I still remember the early 90s marketing campaign for AKAI TV "color TV for Rs.5000" (or something like that). It was the hottest selling product for two months and then it is gone.

However, TATA still has a good chance because NANO is not that bad. IMO they have to find a way to get out of this Rs.1 lakh or $2500 trap, add more features and keep improving the product.

They didn't market Nano as 1 lakh rupee car they marketed it as "Poeples Car", in fact they haven't done much marketing as it isn't necessary. It was media which was doing touting it as the 1 lakh rupee car, Tata had no option but to accept the challenge.

Akai went away because Akai Japan ended the brand licensing deal with Videocon. Videocon and other companies like Samsung, LG etc continue to sell their TVs in similar price range.

As far as succeeding with price range marketing is concerned there are too many success stories to state take for example Netobooks from Asus Acer MSI etc and in mobile phone space Nokia, have lost 12 percent market share during the past year to new Desi players like Karbonn, Micromax, Spice Mobiles, Lemon, Max and Lava all competing on price.