BackHyundai discontinues premium sedan Sonata
The product was unable to make a dent in an already shrinking premium sedan market
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Hyundai Motor India Ltd has discontinued production of its premium sedan Sonata, a top executive said.
The product from the Indian subsidiary of the Korean car maker was unable to make a dent in an already shrinking premium sedan market, where it was pitched against stronger rivals such as Honda Cars India Ltd’s Accord and Toyota Kirloskar Motor India Pvt. Ltd’s Camry.
Barring its first-generation model, Sonata’s second and third generation models were not very popular and the company was barely able to sell 10 units of the car every month.
“We have discontinued production of Sonata in December. We keep revisiting our existing product portfolio as part of product strategy," Rakesh Srivastava, senior vice-president (sales and marketing), Hyundai Motor India said in a phone interview.
“In December, we have discontinued production of Santro and Sonata to create brand opportunity and production capacity for the new brands... This product strategy increased our sales to more than four lakh units while increasing our market share to the highest level," he said.
The company had stopped Santro’s production to create more capacity for its hot-selling premium hatchback Elite i20.
Srivastava added the company plans to achieve half a million sales in the near-term in India.
To be sure, Hyundai has an annual installed production capacity of 680,000 units at its Sriperumbudur factory near Chennai. During the first nine months to December this fiscal, Hyundai sold 309,000 units, up 11.24% over a year-ago period. Its exports declined 16.32% to 160,000 units. Sales of India’s passenger vehicle industry grew 3.67% to 1.89 million while exports gained 6.21% to 482,000 units.
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