Hyundai's claim to second place in India is reasonable

Even as rivalry from homegrown manufacturer Tata Motors intensifies and "raises the benchmark," South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor Company's India subsidiary believes it can reclaim its long-held second place in the Indian passenger vehicle (PV) market.

Tata Motors surpassed Hyundai as India's second-largest PV manufacturer in May, selling 43,341 units versus 42,293 for Hyundai in the same month. Tata Motors has beaten Hyundai to the coveted number two spot in the Indian PV market for the second time in the last six months. On the strength of a continued ramp-up in production of both its sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and electric vehicles, Tata Motors has been progressively inching closer to closing the market share gap it has with Hyundai (EVs).

"Monthly sales figures or a couple of months' worth of sales don't characterize Hyundai." We are long-term investors and plan to make long-term commitments. We've previously announced the launch of six battery-electric cars (BEVs) by 2028, as well as the IONIQ 5 later this year. "When we brought the Kona EV to India in 2019, no one was talking about ranges of 450 kilometers or more in an SUV body type," said Tarun Garg, Hyundai India's head of sales and marketing.

Due to the ongoing global shortage of semi-conductor chips, the automaker's manufacturing has been hurt worse than Tata Motors', which at least partly explains its failure to ramp up production at a time when the PV market, particularly that of SUVs, is enjoying significant demand.

Hyundai was the market leader in the SUV sector in 2020 and 2021, with about 23% market share, due to the Venue small SUV and the Creta mid-size SUV.