Kia India has decided to put on hold new products after the launch of its compact SUV Sonet next month.
The company had earlier announced that it would launch one product every six months. In an interaction with The Telegraph, Kia Motors India executive director Tae-Jin Park said: “There will be no more new product offerings this fiscal. We will wait and watch how the situation develops post-Covid.”
The company entered the Indian market with its premium SUV Seltos in August last year. It followed up the Seltos with a luxury MPV Carnival at the Auto Expo on February 5 this year and now it is entering the compact SUV segment with the Sonet in September.
Expecting the Sonet to give it high numbers, the company is now on a wait-and-watch mode. “We want to achieve full capacity utilisation of our plant at Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, as our long-term goal,” said Manohar Bhat, vice-president, marketing and sales, Kia Motors India.
It has an annual capacity of 300,000 units. The company operated in one shift after the lockdown was lifted and followed it up with two shifts within a month.
“With each shift, we can produce 100,000 vehicles per annum. If the third shift is fully operational, we will be at 100 per cent utilisation,” said Bhat.
The company hopes to have its third shift operational once the Sonet is launched. At present, it has got over 9,000 bookings for the Sonet.
The South Korean giant has sold 1,02,609 units cumulatively till July this year. It sold 98,979 units of the Seltos and 3,630 units of the MPV Carnival.
The company is looking at a “good growth” this year since it entered the Indian market in September last year. “We will definitely post a good growth. But right now we cannot put a figure to it,” said Bhat.
Kia is also planning to export 50,000 units of Sonet annually. “We will be exporting to countries like Indonesia, South Africa and other markets,” said Park. It exports Seltos to 40 countries including Africa and South America. Total cumulative export of Seltos stood at 29261 units till the end of July 2020.
