Hyundai Motor India believes that its SUV range is likely to gain further traction in the domestic market. The demand for personal mobility is gaining momentum post the second wave of COVID-19. Hyundai is currently selling the Venue, Creta, Tucson and the newly launched Alcazar.
Hyundai is already leading the SUV space, and is aiming to maintain its lead in the segment which is growing with each passing month. “The strong trend towards SUVs continues in the domestic market. The share of SUVs in the overall passenger vehicle segment is increasing with each passing month. In July, the SUV penetration was over 37 per cent and in the January-July period, it was around 36 per cent, so the trend is clearly visible,” Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) Director-Sales, Marketing, Service Tarun Garg told PTI in an interaction.
He further said that Hyundai’s SUV sales are increasing consistently in the domestic market. The new Alcazar is also helping the Korean automaker to further increase its sales. “The way things are, it seems that due to this shift towards personal mobility, the demand is coming back very strongly post the second wave of the COVID-19 as was witnessed after the first wave. This time around the demand is coming from both urban and rural areas. After the first wave, it was mainly the rural regions, which were generating the demand,” Garg said.
It was speculated that the Alcazar could impact the sales of the Hyundai Creta, which is currently India’s best-selling SUV. However, Hyundai claims that the new Alcazar has been able to generate additional volumes for the brand without affecting the sales of the Creta in the market.
“There has hardly been any cannibalisation of Creta sales. So this is important because if we look at the numbers last year for Creta, we used to do around 8,000 units per month and SUVs in all used to do around 15,000 units. In Q1 this year, we have moved to over 12,500 units for Creta and the total SUV sales have gone up to 23,800 units. Further in July, the total SUV sales have crossed the 24,000 units mark,” Garg stated.
In July 2021, Hyundai sold over 13,000 units of the Creta. The newly launched Alcazar further adds about 3000 to the total sales. “So there has been no cannibalisation so far. So we think Alcazar would be able to bring in new customers to the company fold. So the initial trends are very, very encouraging and we have received over 14,000 bookings for Alcazar so far,” Garg noted.
He further said that over 65% of the customers have opted for the diesel-end powered Alcazar 7-seater SUV. Hyundai believes that the fuel efficiency has become a very important critieria with the fuel prices going up. The price difference between petrol and diesel variants are also very low. Hyundai claims that there is a good demand for diesel variants. Garg added that there are certain states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra Punjab and Haryana, where traditionally diesel vehicles sell more.
Hyundai is providing both petrol and diesel engine options to customers. Adding to it, Hyundai cars and SUVs are equipped with class-leading features and technology that plays an important role in rising sales of the Korean brand in India.
“One trend, which is clearly coming out, is that the customers are really looking for feature-loaded cars. They want all kinds of features in their cars because they are utilising personal vehicles to travel more and more. Earlier, people used to take a flight or a train but now they prefer going by their own cars,” Garg said.
The Hyundai Alcazar currently commands a waiting period of around 8-12 weeks, while Creta has more than 3 months waiting period. The company is looking to increase production to reduce the high waiting period.
