After over 15 years and 5 million cars, Hyundai is changing gears in India as it bets big on compact sports utility vehicles to drive its next phase of growth.
Some other car-makers have already launched their compact SUVs and reaped rich dividends. Still there are enough opportunities to get a pie of the market, said Young Jin Ahn, India chief coordinator for sales and marketing, Hyundai.
Young told
And one of them could be Hyundai ix25, though Young did not share details about the new launch. What is certain is that most of the new launches will have the latest version of fluidic design, called Fluidic Sculpture 2.0.
The Fluidic Sculpture 2.0 can be seen in the latest Elite i20 and will be a common design form across all new launches of Hyundai. The Fluidic Sculpture was first introduced in 2007 to create a common design for all Hyundai models and since then it has evolved over the years. However, certain design tweaks do take place for specific regions like in the case of India for Eon hatchback.
The Fluidic Sculpture 2.0 is basically a combination of fluid aesthetics, modern appeal and a premium interior, Young pointed out.
In the case of Elite i20, the fluidic design consists of a singular hexagonal grille, easy on the eyes design and a sharper focus on materials and finishing of the car.
Young added the company is looking seriously at marketing i10 better now that the Santro has been phased out. At present, i10 sells about 6,000 units a month compared with Santro, which during its phase-out period, used to sell about 3,000 units a month.
Hyundai expects to sell about 4.65 lakh units during the current calendar year compared with about 4.1 lakh units during the previous year. By the end of 2015, Hyundai would have sold about 6 million cars in India since it launched its first car in 1998.