Boyant by the success of Venue, India’s second largest carmaker Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) has plans to launch more affordable sport utility vehicles (SUVs) in the domestic market, particularly in the sub four meter segment.
“We are planning to look at more affordable SUVs ... The way we are going, Hyundai will become a very strong player in the SUV segment,” Puneet Anand, senior GM and group head, HMIL told this publication. It also has plans to launch electric vehicles in the mass affordable segment, he said. Launched in May, booking for Venue is inching towards one lakh units figure. The sub-compact SUV has helped Hyundai to increase its market share and reduce slowdown woes.
Together with popular Creta, HMIL has expanded its utility vehicle (UV) market share by over 5 per cent to 19.43 percent in the April-October 2019 period from 13.91 per cent a year ago. At present, the Korean carmaker has three SUVs in its line-up — Venue, Creta and slightly premium Tucson. HMIL also launched India’s first electric SUV Kona in July.
While the carmaker did not reveal name and specification of its future SUVs, it is likely to showcase the much awaited facelift of Creta in Indian Auto Expo 2020. Creta has now been facing stiff competition from Kia Seltos. “Seltos is launched recently while Creta has been there for five years and still bringing good numbers. We are very confident that Creta will remain the single largest sold SUVs in India,” Anand said.
According to reports, HMIL would also launch facelift of Tucson next year and may bring in a mini SUV in future to strengthen its presence in the segment. Even as India’s automobile sector is in the midst of a slowdown and sales of passenger vehicle (PV) contracted severely over the past few months, UVs have performed consistently better than other PV sub-segments.
In the festive month of October when the PV segment had positive sales growth of 0.28 per cent year-on-year, UV sales, as per SIAM, soar by 22.22 per cent. "There is a tendency among people to adopt SUV body type. While the entry level segment continues to remain volume generating segment, Sedan sales are facing pressure," Anand said, adding "In future we may see more pressure coming to Sedan but as a responsible manufacturer we will continue to offer Sedans."