The clash is vital and crucial for the auto industry after a reverberating recession world wide. This time the clash is between the South Korean car maker Hyundai and the American car giant Ford. Hyundai has seen the nuance to counter Ford’s Figo by devising the diesel variant of i10. Now only Hyundai acknowledges its clash against Ford Figo [images]and Nissan Micra [images], said the company’s MD for India. Of these two, he said, the company is more concerned with the rise of Figo and in addition, it is Maruti’s WagonR [images]. He said it is certain that the diesel variant of i10 will be pitted against these vehicles, but with no time bound process.
Hyundai’s Chennai facility has the capacity of 6 lakh cars per year and from these, the petrol version of i10 is exported to major countries. The company offers Atos, i10 [images], i20 [images], Getz [images](click), Verna(Accent) and Sonata(NF) to the sub-continents. There will be a launch of Santa Fe [images], the mid-size SUV as a CBU, during the last quarter of this year, he added. Apart from these, the company is planning to launch at least one model a year as news about the Sonata YF(sedan), refined i10 and i20 for the Indian market is already in the air. He denied the phasing out of Santro [images], which is doing business of 8000 units a month and there will be an expansion of the current line of models during the early 2011-12, he mentioned.
To meet the potential small car segment, the company is devising a sub-Santro model and the R&D for this is on at Namyang. The company has witnessed the growth of its market share from 20.7% to 20.6% with the export market spread over 120 countries. The sale in the last year was 289863 units and the company is planning to increase the dealer network to 320 from the existing 290. The company is fully aware of the growing rural market- 31% currently with the rate of 5%- for which there will be hub-and-spoke model. Hyundai is making the strategy on the lines of Maruti which has a stronghold in these rural pockets. This year’s target, he said, is to retain or surpass the 10% industry growth. There will be a move to retain 50:50 status of domestic and export market akin to last year, though there will be a stress on domestic market to make the ratio to 57:43. The company likes to play within the capacity and is to wait the increase before going for an expansion, he concluded.