With the upcoming Kia cars, they would be mainly targeting the MPV segment, the sub-compact SUV and the hatchback segments, also not ruling out an EV.
Kia just unveiled the Seltos SUV in India yesterday and that marks their first product in the Indian market. Well, Kia is in no mood of getting lazy because they plan to launch as many as four new models in India by 2021. Kia believes they have had a late entry in the Indian market and they have quite an aggressive strategy with the upcoming Kia cars in India.
If Kia are to launch four new models by 2021 after the launch of the Seltos in August, then that means Kia would come out with a new product every six or nine months. The next model from Kia then should arrive by early next year. Speaking to CarandBike, H W Park, CEO & President of Kia, said, “We have come too late (to India). Why we invested $1.1 billion in India – with our plant construction? We are confident to succeed in India. Today, we just now launched the Seltos. From Seltos we launch 4 models within 2 years. And we can reach 3 lakh cars in 2 years.”
From Park’s statement, we can estimate that Kia’s facility in Anantapur will have a 300,000 units annual capacity and Kia hopes that they would match up the sales by equal measures by 2021. Kia has invested over a billion dollars in India and while most of it has gone in setting up the new plant, a significant portion has also gone in investing in marketing and network, besides hiring staff and setting up its India offices.
Also Read : Kia Planning To Launch A New MPV To Take On The Maruti Suzuki Ertiga
Expect Kia to be launching two new products in 2020 and 2021 respectively. Kia says that they have established the biggest dealer network of any new brand entrant to India and they are banking quite hard on it. The company has already established 265 touch points which are up and running as of today. They plan to have 35 more touchpoints by 2020 and as many as 350 by 2021.
In comparison, MG Motor’s also opened doors in India very recently and they started with 120 touch points. They would be expanding to 250 touch points by September, still behind Kia. Also in comparison, Hyundai, who has been in this country for over two decades have 498 dealerships across the entire country as of this day.
Also Read : Kia Seltos Unveiled In India – Marks Kia’s First Product In India
Kia and Hyundai are sister brands, part of the Hyundai Group and they both together aim to account for over a million car sales annually in India by 2021. Hyundai too has been aggressive with its India portfolio off late and Kia expects that they would catch up with the market with products in the high volume segments. With the upcoming Kia cars, they would be mainly targeting the MPV segment, the sub-compact SUV and the hatchback segments. Also Kia does not rule out an EV or electric car for India in the near future as well.
