Hyundai targets rural market, drives in new Santro
NEWDELHI: Hyundai Motor Co. on Tuesday brought back the entry-level Santro small car to India two decades after it was first introduced as the South Korean automaker mounts one of its strongest-ever efforts to challenge the domination of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd in the rural regions and small towns.
The re-launch of the Santro, however, comes at a time when high auto fuel prices, increased loan rates, and worsening macroeconomic factors have crimped consumer demand.
Hyundai generates about 20% of its total sales from rural and semi-urban areas.
In comparison, Maruti garners about 30%-35% of its sales volume from such regions because of its range of fuel-efficient, small cars such as the Alto, WagonR and Celerio and a vast retail network.
YK Koo, managing director, Hyundai Motor India Ltd, said the new Santro will be pushed more in the rural and semi-urban markets as the company would try to attract more firsttime car buyers.
“For Santro, the priority market is rural and the firsttime buyers, and whatever the number of customers we get from the metro cities will be additional. This is the right product to attract the rural as well as the semi urban markets as the Santro has the lowest cost of maintenance among its competitors,” said Koo.
Despite having a fairly popular product in the Santro when it was introduced in 1998, Hyundai remained a distant No. 2 in India as it could not offer much of a challenge to Maruti’s wide range of small cars, especially in the hinterlands.