[Nav-i-gator]

Indian Auto market changed with the entry of Deawoo (cielo and Matiz), and that "affordable premium" space since have been captured by hyundai.

To an extent, Hyundai and Tata motors have played big role in creating auto market and segments in the market which was just about maruti 800 only country.

While Tata motors failed to convert the head start (and fan following) it had, Hyundai has only gone from strengths to strengths, bringing out innovative designs, premium looks and feel, umpteen features (many segment firsts), and have forced the other manufacturers to bring in their global products to India (I think Hyundai was the first Auto MNC to have a global launch of their product, i20, in India).

Hyundai have been the much required market disruptor.

[Latheesh]

One thing Hyundai enjoy comparing to competition is their "loyal" customer base. These people never look at other cars when they look to upgrade. I have seen many people who owned Santro/i10/i20 upgrading to Grandi10/elite i20/Verna/Creta. All credit goes to Hyundai for understanding Indian car buyer needs well in advance and making large investments early.

Couple of people I know recently bought Hyundai Verna Petrol (Fluidic). This is knowing that Ciaz/City is better comparing to old Verna Petrol. They also knew that new Verna was around the corner. Still they went ahead with their decision. One was upgrading from Santro and other from i10.

[SSD2122]

My first buy was a Maruti Omni and the second one was a Hyundai Getz. I had lovely ownership for many years with both. Omni was a perfect fit for fun trips with family, friends and luggage. It had great space and was easy to drive.

Upgrading to Getz from Omni, the first feeling I had was that of premium-ness everywhere. Of course I am not comparing Omni with Maruti, just recollecting my experience. It had loads of features which kind of pampered me. It was a silent, stable performer on the roads, be it highway or city. Very nice steering and most of all, butter smooth gear shift. In my almost 7 years of ownership, not once did I experience any rattle or face any issue with it. It was of top build quality. Even today Hyundai's portfolio boasts of beautiful looking cars be it i20 or Creta etc. I love their designs.

So I feel a tad disappointed on such a statement coming from Hyundai. Why feel that way. You have toiled very hard to see where you are today and you should be proud of that! I hope they continue to give us beautiful designs and ensure that they keep Maruti on their toes. Best of luck to that!

[Reinhard]

I'll mostly get bashed for this line in this thread which will generally have more Hyundai fans visiting. Somehow I find the current hyundai designs either boring or overdone. The fluidic design philosophy has peaked I think and the cars look a bit like from animated films.

Rationally thinking, today's Suzukis actually look far better - of course its subjective & they are good for my taste. They look sober, more formal, proportionate - much more like European designs rather than Jap/Korean. Finally Suzuki has managed to get there perhaps. So the looks are a bit understated on the Suzuki cars (keeping Ignis aside) but are still something that will age well. Not loud. For instance, the i20 looks too boxy at the bottom rear, too sharp at the nose & lips and a bit too tapered/narrow at the top. Not too proportionate a design IMO. Put i20Active in the mix & oh save my eyes... No offense meant - just expressing my thoughts of where Hyundai is actually surprisingly lagging compared to Suzuki other than the number of service stations & cost of ownership in the long run.

[Mad Max]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

Interesting take and yes your theory is compelling, however let me draw a loose-parallel to another sales war that has been going on for about 100 years - Coke & Pepsi.
...

Not exactly similar but its the closest brand-war parallel in my knowledge.

Absolutely spot on. I agree with the parallel too. What I am saying is that Pepsi never comes out in the open and says to the media "Coke is way far ahead of us to catch up in the cola war. We are hence going to make everyone eat chips from airbags." They may have all the powerpoints, excels and documents to say this internally but it would be crazy if they admitted to it in the market.

Wait till Maruti's branding team hears about this. They're going to go full tilt into Hyundai's brand.

[Mpower]

To me it seems like a bit of lame excuse because Suzuki is also a global brand They have just cleverly picked and chosen from Suzuki’s existing lineup from past and present and cut costs and facelifted where required

As far as reducing weight, he's referring to the Baleno which Maruti sells in Western Europe, a mature market that demands the latest and greatest in safety. We know its the same spec car because reviewers have commented about the tinny build, average plastics, XXL amounts of space and un-Swift like dull steering

Hyundai bet on the possibility that new found economic prosperity will tempt the customer to step up from Maruti to Hyundai products which are a notch or two above in PQ. This did not happen on the scale they had hoped for so why now blame anyone other than yourself ??

Suzuki was present in the Indian market back in the 90s when market was not as lucrative...the size was small and growth was low and buying power is small. The products made by Suzuki resonated with the customer even though they had some big shortcomings (tight on space compared to Tata especially

Originally Posted by GTO

I think it's credible that both these manufacturers have retained their market-share & grown volumes, despite so many new competitors in the last decade. Maruti & Hyundai have sent many MNC brands back to their headquarters with their tail between their legs.

Amen to that

The irony is that they (Suzuki & Hyundai) have achieved it despite not haven’t done a unique (entire) car for India specific car like Toyota, Honda, Renault, Nissan, Ford

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by Mad Max

Absolutely spot on. I agree with the parallel too. What I am saying is that Pepsi never comes out in the open and says to the media "Coke is way far ahead of us to catch up in the cola war. We are hence going to make everyone eat chips from airbags." They may have all the powerpoints, excels and documents to say this internally but it would be crazy if they admitted to it in the market.

Wait till Maruti's branding team hears about this. They're going to go full tilt into Hyundai's brand.

Agree that one brand must never admit that they cannot "get there", however upon reading your post I decided to dig deeper, seems to me that another interesting similarity cropped up :

For starters, Pepsi has conceded the soft-drink advantage to Coke in order to focus more on healthier alternatives. Pepsi has hired several well-known nutritionists to work on reducing fat, sodium and sugar in its products.

Through their divisions of Quaker Oats, Gatorade and Tropicana, Pepsi already has more product options available than Coke to meet consumer’s healthier demand. Pepsi projects that their continued venture into the nutrition business will increase revenues from $10 billion today to $30 billion by 2020

https://thestillmanexchange.com/2014...-vs-coca-cola/

This is keeping in mind that in 2012, Diet Coke was no.2 cola-wise in America leaving Pepsi as a 3rd spotter. I cannot find any direct links but there was an indirect admission of failure in competing with Coke that I remember and thus the move into healthy alternatives.

Ok I may be going overboard initiating such comparisons which are at best, loosely related so I'll get to the point : Personally I feel marketing is passe today, and I say this as a marketing aficionado. I also think Hyundai did no wrong in admitting that they cannot get to the top spot.. is it direct? Yes it is but facts cannot change.

- If they're already at 90% factory utilization there is no way they can even come close to number 1 in dispatches without spending many hundreds of crores and about 5-6 years in setting up a new factory. Breaking even will take a long time with such a move.

- Hyundai is, lets be quite honest here - a brand that doesn't carry much love/loyalty either for valid reasons or for the silliest reasons. Most consumers see it as an intermediate brand - something that you use as you work your way up and most either ignore it because brands with a longer heritage and better material quality (VW/Skoda/Fiat etc) are around or because a brand with great service availability and brand recall is around (Maruti). So I know for a fact that Hyundai will never be number 1, and I've to say this even though I'd made a bet long back with my friends who were Apple fanboys that Samsung or some Android flagship model will topple it.

- I always buy what sells less, its something I've always been about so being number one in sales matters zilch to me. Its a known fact that top-sellers lose their way after awhile and the competition to compete harder will come up with a trump-card and offer more to the buyer than ever before. Hyundai is right where they should be. Fiat is a good example here.. they sell the least yet offer the most in the form of the Punto/Linea, however I can never buy them because in automobile ownership, service support is 50% of the story and they don't have that covered.

- This statement from Hyundai could've been avoided but its a clear sounding of the horn for what consumers should expect from the brand in future - better premium build quality, more features, better user experience and higher pricing. KIA will arrive in 2 years from now and they will have to cater to the 5-15 lac niche themselves.. so Hyundai will become a premium brand by then and KIA a half-segment lower (like how VW-Skoda is positioned). This way Hyundai Group has 2 factories to work out of and can generate more sales while splitting the load of management, branding, sales into 2.. Hyundai has obviously peaked.

In the end car-buying is a personal choice.. each may hate a brand or love it for reasons that simply aren't rational but that's the best part of choosing the car. No post here is going to convince anybody to tilt towards or reject a brand if they're truly convinced, we just do that to create awareness on the various facets of car ownership - driving, reliability, service, interior quality, exterior quality, design, desirability etc.

[volkman10]

At 17% market share in the first quarter of this financial year from 17.7% a year ago, Hyundai's company executives says -

chasing market share or improvement in volumes is secondary to providing premium quality vehicles to the domestic market.

the company is not eager to increase volumes as they will gradually rise with public trust

There are various car call-backs and other scandals in the auto industry and our priority is to avoid that. We are a modern premium brand for whom volume is important, but quality is even more important.

LINK

[PearlJam]

When Maruti almost gobbled up Hyundai India, its arch-rival of over two decades - https://economictimes.indiatimes.com...w/62815312.cms

Imagine if Maruti had taken over Hyundai in 1999. This would probably have created a giant conglomerate within 2 years, leaving little room for any 3rd manufacturer to even enter the market, let alone grow. I say "probably", because Hyundai tasted success with the Santro doing exceptionally well. Would the Santro have done as well as it did, if Maruti had taken over Hyundai?

Also, would Maruti+Hyundai have done as well together, as they have done independently as of today?

We can only speculate!