Sept. 24 (NBD) -- Lexus, the luxury arm of Toyota Motor, is on a sales roll in the Chinese market but it was recently denounced by consumers in the country for an unpleasant price increase.

"We are recently notified by the manufacturer of a price increase for the ES, NX, UX lineups because the upgrade on vehicle configuration leads to climbing costs. The manufacturer's suggested retail prices (MSRP) are therefore expected to rise to an extent," said a Lexus dealer in a text to car buyer Yu Ning. The message was shown in a screenshot presented by Yu Ning to National Business Daily (NBD).

File photo/Zhang Jian (NBD)

It is worth noting that Lexus didn't publicly announced the rise in price for the ES, NX, UX models, but raised the MSRPs on its official website. NBD noticed that the automaker's latest pricing for the three lineups went up by a range between 6,000 yuan (844 U.S. dollars) and 15,000 yuan (2,111 U.S. dollars).

Lexus China did not respond to NBD's request for comments by press time.

"It is not uncommon (for automakers) to increase pricing. I'm eagerly looking forward to the delivery but a price increase after signing the contract is unacceptable," said Yu to NBD. 

Back in August, Yu paid for a deposit of 20,000 yuan to the dealer Shanghai Meiyue Lexus to order a Lexus ES 260 and the car is scheduled to be delivered in March 2020. However, the dealer later told Yu that he couldn't pick up his car unless he paid a price difference of 11,000 yuan.

Yu told NBD that Shanghai Meiyue Lexus agreed to keep the sales price unchanged after rounds of negotiations. It's noted that consumers facing the same problem as Yu did flooded the comment section of Lexus China's account on the Twitter-like platform Weibo to complain.

However, there are some Lexus dealers having decided not to ask customers for extra payment. 

NBD noticed that Jiangsu Zhongjia Lexus announced on September 18 that it will perform the contract at original prices with customers who inked the contract before the Lexus lifted up its MSRPs.

With regard to the reason for the price rise, industry insider Cao He held that it is partly due to the apparently depreciation of the Chinese yuan against Japanese yen but the exchange rate does not play the leading role.

"It is mainly brought by the good sales in China, against the backdrop that the auto sales in the country experienced a slowdown. Lexus stands out among Tier-2 luxury brands," remarked Cao.

It is estimated that the automaker sold 126,900 vehicles in China in the first eight months, reporting an year-over-year rise of 24.9 percent and its sales in China broke the mark of 1 million units in June 2019. In the meantime, car sales in China fell to 16.1 million units in the first eight months, down 11 percent from the year-ago period, based on data by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn