Hyundai To Launch Family Oriented Car Next Year In India

India’s second biggest automaker Hyundai is going to launch a ‘compact’ family oriented car in the second half of 2018.

Hyundai India MD and CEO YK Koo said that the new vehicle will be a compact vehicle but denied any further information whether the car is a compact sports utility vehicle (SUV) or a compact hatchback. However, it is certain the car will be a new model in the company’s line up and not some update of an existing model.

Earlier, the carmaker had announced that it aims to invest about Rs 13,000 crore in India over the next five years to develop and upgrade products. It aims to expand its market share and sell one million vehicles annually by 2020.

India is the third largest market for the South Korean auto giant and contributes 14 per cent in its total global sales.

At present it has a market share of over 16 per cent in the domestic passenger vehicle (PV) market. Market leader Maruti Suzuki has a market share of around 48 per cent.

The company is facing a supply crunch as some of its models continue to be in good demand. Its compact SUV Creta along with premium hatch i20 and entry level car Grand i10 has so far sold 1.3 million units in India.

Koo said that in order to meet domestic demand they have cut down exports.

“Slowdown in Latin America and in order to meet domestic demand, we have reduced exports. By 2020-21 we definitely need capacity expansion but right now we have no such plans,” Koo said on the side-lines of the new Verna launch.

Rival auto maker Suzuki Motor Corporation, the parent company of Maruti Suzuki India, had earlier announced investment of Rs 8,500 crore in Gujarat to expand its capacity in phased manner.

Honda Cars India is also going to invest Rs 1,577 crore to expand its production capacity at its Tapukara plant in Rajasthan.

At present, Hyundai has two manufacturing facilities in India.

Koo said that in order to meet demand he has asked vendors to work on Sundays. “We continue to sell 10,000 plus units of Creta every month. In order to meet the demand, we have requested the vendors and workers to work on Sundays,” Koo said. Launched in July 2015, Hyundai so far has sold 2, 00,000 units of Creta.