Will post highest ever domestic sales in 2022: Hyundai's Tarun Garg

Says product portfolio in line with customer's choice for SUVs, non-committal about sales volume; Hyundai's best show so far was in 2018 at 550,002 units

Hyundai Motor India’s domestic sales in 2022 will be the highest ever in the country as its product portfolio has been in line with the customer’s preference for sports utility vehicles (SUVs), said its director (sales, marketing and service) Tarun Garg on Tuesday.

As of now, the company’s highest ever domestic sales were recorded in 2018 at 550,002 units. The South Korean carmaker has been present in the Indian market since 1998, when it launched its first car Santro.

“(The year) 2019 was not such a good year and then Covid-struck. In 2022, we will beat the 2018 figure and we are going to achieve the highest ever domestic sales number,” Garg told Business Standard.

When asked about the exact number of units the company is expected to domestically sell in 2022, he replied it is very difficult to give a figure as there are still five months left in this year.

The company on Tuesday launched its compact SUV Venue N Line, which has 30 unique features and is a sportier version of Venue. Venue N Line is available in India at prices starting Rs 12.16 lakh (ex-showroom).

In FY21 and FY22, retail sales of Venue were 97,878 units and 112,266 units, respectively.

Garg said the N Line products are a niche segment but the company is extremely inspired by the response it received for i20 N Line, which was launched last September.

N Line cars of Hyundai are inspired by WRC (World Rally Championship) cars of the company, he said. The company wants to launch more N Line cars in the coming 3-4 years.

“In 2023, we are expecting to sell about 10,000 Venue N Lines and 6,000 i20 N Lines,” he mentioned.

N Line cars have been able to bring new customers (people who did not previously own a Hyundai car) to the company, he said.

While the number of i20s sold to new customers was 28 per cent, the figure stood at 32 per cent for i20 N Lines, Garg explained.

In SUVs, there is a compact segment and there is a mid-sized segment. While Venue is in the compact segment, Hyundai’s Creta belongs to the mid-size segment.

Compact SUV is the bigger segment of the two. This year, compact SUVs are contributing 21.4 per cent to Hyundai’s overall sales and more than 50 per cent to the company’s SUV sales, Garg mentioned.

He spoke about how people’s preferences have changed from hatchbacks to SUVs during the past few years.

The ability to see this customer trend early and making sure that our product portfolio is in line with it is helping the company reach the highest ever sales this year, Garg said.

He added that in July 2022, the company touched the benchmark of selling 1 million SUVs in the country.

In 2015, the hatchbacks and SUVs used to contribute about 49 per cent and 13.5 per cent, respectively, to the total domestic sales of cars in India, Garg mentioned.

By 2022, the share of hatchbacks in total domestic sales dropped to about 35 per cent and the share of SUVs increased to 41 per cent, respectively, he said.

“That has really helped Hyundai as we were able to spot this trend. In 2015, SUVs used to contribute 8.5 per cent to my sales. This has increased to about 53 per cent for me in 2022,” he mentioned.