Honda India to hike prices of their models

The weak rupee is showing its ugly face. Honda is likely to hike car prices across most models by Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 1.5 lakh starting January 2008. The price hike has been attributed to the depreciation of the rupee. Since most auto parts are imported, the rupee's depreciation has made them expensive, forcing Honda to go for a price hike despite a slowdown in the market.

The highest impact would be on the sports-utility vehicle CR-V, which is imported to India as a completely-built unit. The price of the CR-V is expected go up by at least a lakh. While price of the luxury sedan Accord will go up by Rs 30,000-50,000, Civic will likely to be dearer by Rs 10,000-20,000.

As of now Honda has no plans to increase the price of the City. Its new model has just been launched and Honda will deliver them at the announced price. Currently, there are as many as 5000 bookings.

Honda's price hike comes at a time when the car industry in India is in the grip of a slowdown due to record-high interest rates and tight retail financing by banks. Sales of Honda fell by almost 28% for the months April-October compared to the same period last year.

The slowdown has also forced the company to go slow on its upcoming second plant in Rajasthan where it has decided to delay production of cars from the earlier-scheduled 2009 to 2010.

Source: Infibeam.com News

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Infibeam.com announces the confirmed acquisition of Picsquare.com

Leading online retailer Infibeam.com has acquired Bangalore based photo printing and customized gifts company Picsquare.com. Picsquare was founded in 2005 and continues to be the most preferred online destination for gifts during special occasions like birthdays, weddings and festival season. The founders Manish Agrawal and Kartik Jain are both alumni of IIT Mumbai and will continue with Infibeam post acquisition.

With this acquisition, Infibeam.com will offer the largest selection of retail and customized goods at most attractive prices for consuming India. The Founder & CEO of Infibeam.com Mr. Vishal Mehta said "The acquisition of Picsquare.com will perfectly complement our existing product lines like cameras and gift stores. Choose a gift product and you can add a personal touch to it by adding a photo picture, designs or words that reflect your emotions." He further added "Picsquare will continue as a stand-alone website and customers can expect many more innovative products and features in coming weeks".

"Now with the support of Infibeam, we'll be able to devote more of our time to expanding product selection and improving product features" said Manish Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of Picsquare.com. He added "Infibeam.com has always put the customer at the center of everything it does, and we look forward to making Picsquare.com even better for our customers in weeks to come".

About Infibeam.com & Picsquare.com:
Infibeam.com is an exciting new shopping destination online. With innovative search and navigation, detailed product descriptions, crisp images and best customer service, the team at Infibeam.com is dedicated to providing customers with an unparalleled shopping experience right at your doorstep. Choose the product you want and leave the rest to Infibeam.com.

Picsquare.com is a market leader in online photo printing and customized gifts. Personalized products such as photo greeting cards, collage posters, photo-books, t-shirts from Picsquare are ideal gifts for special events such as birthdays and festivals.

http://www.infibeam.com/
http://www.picsquare.com/

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Beetle from Volkswagen to buzz on Indian roads next year

Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker, is planning to import and sell the iconic car brand in India next year. It would be a completely built unit import, which means that the beetle will have a steep price tag.

The CBU imports attract over 100%duty and VW is currently looking for a niche market, for the new car in India.

This would be positioned in the lifestyle car and the pricing for India is yet to be decided. Volkswagen is present in India as Volkswagen India, Skoda Auto India and Audi India.

The carmaker has a 30,000-unit manufacturing capacity at Aurangabad and is in the process of setting up a 1.1-lakh unit facility at Chakan (Pune), which is planned for release next year.

Despite the global slowdown Volkswagen has remained mostly unaffected. It is all set to give competition to other hatchbacks despite no tweak in its pricing.

Source: Infibeam.com News

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Now Nissan Motor in Korea

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. (NML) announced the Nissan brand officially launches today in Korea. Leading the Nissan brand expansion into Korea are the Murano premium mid-size crossover and the Rogue compact crossover. The Nissan range will be available through four showrooms in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Busan.

"The introduction of the Nissan brand in Korea represents an important part of the company's continuing focus on our global business growth," said Gilles Normand, corporate vice president in charge of the Korean market business at NML. "Korea is in fact, one of the last major global automotive markets not served by the Nissan brand, and so today has special significance for the company."

The initial lineup of Nissan models will be followed first by the Altima sedan early next year and then the high performance Nissan GT-R supercar. The Nissan brand comes to the Korean market three years after the introduction of Infiniti, the company's luxury brand.

"With the arrival of the Nissan brand to the Korean market today, we now have two distinctive brands to meet our customers' diverse needs, and we are the first Japanese automotive company to introduce both the luxury and the premium brand in the market," said Greg Phillips, President of Nissan Korea Co., Ltd. (NKL). "We're confident that the globally recognized Nissan brand will be welcomed in this new market."

In addition to the four Nissan showrooms now open, NKL schedules to open a Nissan outlet next year in Incheon as just one more sales point in a dedicated dealer network being built for the Nissan brand across the country.

Murano is available at 48.9 million won, including VAT. Rogue is offered as 2WD, 4WD Deluxe and 4WD Premium and is priced at 29.9 million won, 34.6 million won and 35.9 million won, including VAT, respectively.

Source: Infibeam.com News

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Tata Nano to roll out first batch from Pantnagar by early 2009

Tata has geared up to roll out its first batch of Tata Nano cars by the first quarter of 2009 from its Pantnagar facility in Uttarakhand. After the Singur walkout, it has become evident that Tata Nano is going to miss its promised launch by the end of this calendar year.

Reliable sources say that the Indian automaker has already begun Nano's production at its Pantnagar existing facility. And it has reportedly asked its vendors to supply components for only 3,500 - 4,000 Nanos on a monthly basis for now.

Working towards an early and quality release of the Tata Nano, a group of Tata Motors officials would be meeting the Uttarakhand government by the first week of November'08. The meeting would thrash out all details about its initial plans for Nano, until its mother plant at Sanand in Gujarat is ready for commercial production.

Another source said that the Tatas are also eyeing an integrated land of about 1,100 acres at Pantnagar to manufacture both the Ace pick-up truck and Tata Nano in tandem.

Source: Infibeam.com News

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