Kia Motors moves to 5th slot

PUNE: With its single product called Kia Seltos, a compact SUV, the new entrant Kia Motors has become the fifth largest car maker in a fiercely competitive car market in the country. It sold 12,850 cars last month.

The first biggest car maker by sales is Maruti Suzuki which sold 1,39,121 units last month, followed by Hyundai 50,010 units, Mahindra 18,460 units and Tata Motors 13,169 units.

With robust sales Kia Seltos is poised to take compeition to Maruti Vitara Brezza and the Hyundai Venue, the top two SUVs in the best-sellers’ list.

What is helping the BS VI-ready Kia Seltos make headway in the competitive SUV market is its very aggressive pricing.

The Korean carmaker's pricing strategy for all of 16 variants covers virtually every price point and starts from Rs 9.69 lakh for the entry level petrol model and goes up to Rs 15.99 lakh for the diesel.

With this, it takes on rivals like the Hyundai Creta, MG Hector, Nissan Kicks, Mahindra XUV500 and the Renault Captur in India.

Now to meet the growing demand, Kia Motor has started the second shift to ramp up production at its factory in Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh. It has an installed production capacity of 3 lakh units annually.

The world's 8th largest Korean car maker sold 12,850 cars last month but averaged 8,880 units a month since August in a prolonged slowing market.

Cumulative sales for the August-October 2019 period add up to 26,640 units, which constitutes a monthly average of 8,880 units.

"There is a great demand for our single product called Kia Seltos,” said Manohar Bhat, Head, Marketing and Sales at Kia Motors India.