Hyundai, the South African car maker, is all set to expedite its growth in the highly potential Indian car market. The latest move is to launch a minimum of one model every year, to retain and regain its supremacy in the already promising Indian market. This will be in addition to the company’s penetration into the rural sector and proposed all localization, said its MD at Seoul. Apart from this, there will be an expansion of dealer network to reach the mass as the company has geared itself to produce 600000 cars a year through its Chennai units.
Being the largest exporter of cars for the sixth consecutive year, the export market too is secure with a minimum of 200000 units a year. Hyundai happens to be the second largest passenger car maker in India, coming next to Maruti-Suzuki. The company’s performance in last fiscal was a sale volume of 600588 cars making it a growth of 20.8% to the previous year’s sale. The cars made from the Indian facilities are being exported to 110 countries comprising Europe, Africa, Middle East, Latin America, Asia and Australia.
The range of cars in the Indian scene from Hyundai includes Santro Xing [images], i10 [images], i20 [images], Accent, Verna [images] and Sonata Transform [images]. Of these, i10 would get the diesel variant as engines would be derived from South Korea. In addition, there will be an SUV Santa Fe [images], a new Sonata sedan along with the refined i10 and i20. Hyundai sees the promise of growth in areas beyond 40 major cities in India. The company is focusing on the increasing domestic market though the slid in export is negligible, said the official. So far, the Chennai facility has exported 50000 units of i20 to the European Union. Hereinafter, the European market for i20 will be taken care of by the Turkey facility in a bid to save duty by being a member of the European Union.