Hyundai Plan To Export 1.9 Lakh Units in 2020

India's largest car exporter Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) is hoping to ship out about 1.9 lakh units in 2020 and also increase the number of overseas markets, said a top company official.

The company rolled out its 30th lakh car (three million) for export market.

"We hope to export about 1.9 lakh units this calendar year. Last year we had exported about 1.81 lakh units," S.S. Kim, Managing Director and CEO told media.

Kim also said there will be an increase in the exports of completely knocked down (CKD) units from HMIL.

He said the company ships out its cars to 88 countries and with the production of BS VI compliant cars at its Chennai plant more overseas markets including the East European nations may be added it its export market list.

Kim said HMIL has come a long way from 1999 when it first exported 20 Santro cars to Nepal to become the largest car exporter out of India to 88 countries.

According to Pankaj Tiwari, Assistant Vice President-Exports, the company does lot of customisation in their models for export markets.

In 2019, 792 customised variants were exported, Tiwari added.

Tiwari said HMIL will be shipping out 130 units of its new car Aura to Colombia mainly for homologation in that market.

He said the political uncertainty in some of the export markets had affected the company's market for some years.

According to Kim, the company would continue to make BS IV emission norm vehicles for overseas markets.

He said the inventory of BS IV vehicles is at manageable levels.

Since from 1.4.2020 onwards, only BS VI emission norm compliant vehicles could only be sold in India, HMIL has already launched BS VI petrol engines with Grand i10, NIOS and the New Elantra in 2019.

Further, the company has upgraded the product line-up - Santro, Grand i10 and Elite i20 with the BS VI petrol engines.

The company is also seeing good market potential for its new model Aura fitted with diesel engines as some major car makers have announced their focus would be only on BS VI compliant petrol engine models in that segment.

According to an official, the price difference between petrol and diesel is increasing now and the market opportunity for HMIL's Aura model with diesel engine is sizeable.

Queried about where HMIL fits in the parent Hyundai Motor Company's 'Strategy 2025' and its plan to invest KRW 61.1 trillion between 2020-2025, Kim said the company had already announced an investment of Rs 7,000 crore in India.

Kim said there is a good growth potential in India as the penetration of cars is low in the market.

He said the company is developing a mass market electric vehicle for India and will be launched in three years.

As to the domestic market, Kim said the demand is expected to pick up in the second half of 2020.