[TusharK]

Kia India has achieved a new milestone, as sales crossed the 3 lakh unit mark. The company achieved the milestone in less than 2 years, making it the fastest brand to surpass 3 lakh sales in India.



Kia achieved the first 1 lakh milestone in July 2020. In January 2021, sales had already crossed the 2 lakh unit mark and the next 1 lakh sales were achieved this month. It took 1 year for Kia to reach the 1 lakh sales mark, but the next 2 lakhs were achieved in the same amount of time. The 3,00,000th car to roll out of Kia's manufacturing facility in Anantapur was a Seltos.

Kia forayed into the Indian market with the Seltos crossover. It makes up 66% of the brand's total sales. The smaller Sonet added 32% to the sales. The carmaker also offers the Carnival MPV in India, of which 7,310 units have been sold.

Kia aims to expand its footprint from the current 300 to 360 touchpoints, covering 90% of the Indian market, including Tier III, IV, and upcountry markets.

Link to Team-BHP News

[Bibendum90949]

The reward of good research and understanding the pulse of our market and aiming for the bull's eye. Who would've thought Kia would consistently feature in the top 3 sales chart when they set foot here two years ago. They literally did it with one single product. The feat is even more commendable considering how the last one year has been with the world thrown out of gear with the pandemic and the industry has been downcast since then. I remember them promising a new model launch every six months but that may not materialize owing to unprecedented disruption in all industries. The one blemish in what has been a dream run so far is the GNCAP safety rating debacle. That was a big shocker for a brand who had done almost everything right. It's one area Kia will have to make amends with their new models.

I just remembered my maiden post on this august forum was on Kia 's India entry. Cross posting some part of it here.

Kia has undoubtedly done a great job - launching at a time of immense disruption and doing a great job, with a car that looks amazingly attractive whenever you see it.

Yes. Kia is one manufacturer that's making all the kind of right noises in a market that's hit rough weather since few years.That shows one thing , there would always be takers for quality and well researched out products. This brand is slowly and surely being embraced by Indian car buyers. Their numbers speaks for itself.

I think Kia 's entry to India has also been accentuated by the fact that Hyundai repeatedly failed to make any inroads into other side of car sales spectrum , the premium segment. Despite many iterations and face lifts of models like Tucson, Santa Fe , Sonata , Elantra they failed to make a lasting impression with car buyers in that segment. Hence they sort of brought their sibling Kia as a premium offering I feel and also for locking horns with a certain giant called Maruti . Similar parallel is, in school when we couldn't handle a tough bully , we sought the help of our senior brothers . They had a crack at the mid size suv segment with a well thought out and researched product that set the sales chart on fire and rightly so and now went straight into launching Carnival ( a premium mpv with literally no player , nearest rival being innova Crysta). Having done that, now there are reports of Kia Sorento , Telluride , which points to the fact that they're here to do What Hyundai couldn't do or rather Hyundai's large game plan with Kia to topple the giant called Maruti. Indeed they're firing on all cylinders.

Maruti on its part has to garner all it's experience and financial muscle to take Hyundai-Kia combine head on and need to up the ante soon. Industry is keenly watching if their decision to quit the diesel scene altogether would end up as a right move .Incidentally , it's been an Achilles' heal for Maruti too to crack the premium segments.. Unless they make giant leaps in technology( 4 speed auto in a brezza an example when Ford has just launched the world's first 10 speed box in Endy) and faster execution they'll slowly lose the ground to the Korean siblings and I won't be surprised if the latter summit the chart 8-10 years down the line..

In short this duel is a much needed impetus to an industry that has gone into a slumber and would benefit the Indian car buyers immensely.

[REN]

Fantastic achievement. My Seltos 7DCT is about to clock 30,000 kms and the ownership experience has been fantastic so far. While I can't speak for the whole of India, the ASS experience atleast in my region (Coimbatore-Tirupur) has been excellent.

The GNCAP results stick out like a sore thumb in an otherwise dream run for Kia India and I genuinely hope they focus on getting the safety aspect right in the upcoming launches.

[abhishek46]

KIA should focus now on adding more service centres.

In many cities, for e.g. Bhubaneswar, they have just one service center.

This leads to High handedness & Monopoly.

[Steelneo]

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[PJ1987]

Kudos to Kia. They did their research and understood our market. And they brought the perfect vehicles tailor suited to our needs. Hats off to them for achieving this feat in such a short period. Wish other manufacturers like VW/Stellantis/Citroen take note and bring exciting products to our shore.