Fast and Furious

Amid India’s worst automobile slowdown, two new entrants are trying to make it big. Can they sustain the success after the initial rush?

- PRANIT SARDA

K Kunal Doshi, 25, an importer and national distributor of nuts and bolts, booked the Kia Seltos GTX Plus 7 DCT in July 2019 and received the car in November. “The car has a bold style, good engine and performance, is comfortable like premium cars, and is loaded with tonnes of features that no other car in its category has,” says Doshi.

Doshi’s vote of confidence in the Hyundai-owned Kia Motors, South Korea’s second-largest automobile manufacturer, is an exception in an otherwise downcast auto sector that is reeling under its worst slowdown since July 2018. Kia, which entered the Indian market in August 2019 with Seltos, a mid-sized SUV manufactured at their Anantapur plant in Andhra Pradesh, has since delivered 75,000 units, 32,000 of which were booked before its launch.

Not only has Seltos established Kia among the top five manufacturers in India, it has also become the highest-selling SUV in the country since its launch. The success of the Seltos managed to create enough buzz for the launch of Kia’s second, luxury multipurpose vehicle (MPV) Carnival, at Auto Expo 2020. The seven-seater, along with Seltos, led to “record-high” sales of 15,644 units for Kia in February.

Kia emerged third beating market leaders and established automobile players like Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra for the month of February 2020. With a 6.24 percent marketshare, Kia followed Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai Motors with 53.33 and 15.96 percent market share respectively.