South Korean carmaker Hyundai expects 2022 to be its best year

NEW DELHI:  South Korea’s Hyundai, which is facing tough competition from homegrown auto major Tata Motors to maintain its status of India’s second-largest carmaker, expects this year to be its best-ever year of sales, as it looks to produce more with easing of chip supply concerns.

The company had logged best-ever domestic wholesales of 5.50 lakh units in 2018 and over the last couple of months it is dispatching around 49,000 units to dealers across India. Hyundai had sold 5.10 lakh units in 2019 when India’s auto market was hit by slowdown in economic activity, 4.23 lakh units in covid-hit 2020 and 5.05 lakh units in 2021. This year, between January and August, the Creta and Venue SUV-maker sold around 3.68 lakh units.

“The semiconductor situation is easing and demand continues to be robust…This year we are fairly confident that we will achieve the highest ever domestic sales in the history of the company in India,” said Tarun Garg, Hyundai Motor India director-sales, marketing, service.

Hyundai, besides the country’s top carmaker Maruti Suzuki, is one of the companies in the domestic market that suffered substantial production loss due to chip shortage. Garg noted that the contribution of its SUV lineup to the total sales was going up and remained better than the industry’s. The company sells five models in the SUV segment — Venue, Creta, Alcazar, Tucson and Kona Electric.