Kia vows to take 10% of Indian market after 1 million car output

In celebration of producing 1 million cars from its Indian plant, Kia Corp. has vowed to command 10% of the Indian car market with more diverse models and the addition of new car dealers.

South Korea’s No. 2 carmaker, an affiliate of the country’s No. 1 Hyundai Motor Co., on Thursday announced that its finished car manufacturing plant in Anantapur, India, has churned out 1 million cars in total since the opening of the plant in 2019.

“It is a great milestone to produce a million units in India, which is the world’s third-biggest auto market with great growth potential,” according to a press release from Kia on Friday. “Kia will strive to be one of the most loved car brands in India by launching more diverse and tailored products and marketing campaigns.”

Kia on the same day announced a new vision for the Indian market, dubbed “Kia 2.0,” which aims to bump up the Korean car maker’s market share to 10% from 6.7% as of the first half of this year.

It plans to produce more models from the Indian plant and more than double its car sale dealers from the current 300 across 215 cities to boost its car sales in the country.

The new production record comes about a year after the Korean carmaker celebrated the earlier milestone of producing 500,000 cars from the Indian factory in 30 months since its opening, marking the shortest period to achieve this among carmakers in the country.

SUV DRIVES SALES

Kia broke ground on the Anantapur plant on a land of 2.16 million square meters in October 2017 and started mass production in July 2019. It boasts an annual production capacity of 350,000 units.

The finished car plant is armed with up-to-date robotics technologies for automatic manufacturing and monitoring.

Kia produces five models at the Indian plant -- the Seltos, the Carnival, the Sonet, the Carens and the EV6. The Seltos was the most produced with a cumulative output of 532,450 units.

The New Seltos was the millionth car produced from the plant.

After foraying into the Indian auto market in 2019 with the Anantapur factory, the company has been rapidly expanding its presence in the market with popular sport utility vehicle models, which also led the company’s overall global sales growth.  

The smaller sibling of Hyundai Motor reported its record-high first-half global sales this year.

It shipped 1,575,920 units globally in the first six months of this year, including 292,103 units in Korea and 1,281,067 cars in overseas markets. Total global sales in the first half of this year were 11% higher from the same period last year.

The global sales growth was mainly driven by brisk sales of sport utility vehicles, with the Sportage selling 260,485 units, followed by 157,188 units of the Seltos and 115,644 units of the Sorento.

The Seltos also was the top-selling car among export models from the Indian plant, accounting for 68% of its cumulative outbound shipments and 53% of Indian local sales since its opening.

Write to Nan-Sae Bin at binthere@hankyung.com
Sookyung Seo edited this article.