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Kia becomes 5th largest car manufacturer in India only with Seltos SUV

Written by Parichay Malvankar

The Kia Seltos is doing very well in the sales race. And now, Kia Motors India backed only with a single car in their showrooms have reached an impressive milestone. The brand is not the 5th largest car maker in India with healthy sales month on month. Globally, Kia Motors Corporation is the world’s 8th largest car manufacturer.

Kia Seltos registered sales of 12,850 units in October 2019. This puts aside the sentiment that the car industry in India is slowing down. Also, since August 2019 when the car was launched in India, Kia has managed to sell over 26,840 units of the Seltos. That is just in 70 days and mind you, the Seltos sits in the INR 10-20 lakh price bracket, so not really a mass market, budget car. Kia having achieved to reach the 5th spot with just 1 car is commendable, and shows the faith customers have shown in a new brand.

Kia claims that they have already clocked more than 60,000 bookings for the Seltos SUV in India. The brand has added a 2nd shift to increase production of the Seltos SUV at their production unit in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. The brand is confident they will continue to meet customer demand, and have gone on record to state that they will never stop accepting bookings. The Seltos had received 6,046 bookings on the first day itself.

Kia has an annual production capacity of 3,00,000 cars from their manufacturing unit in India. In 2020, the brand will be introducing their compact-SUV which will be sharing underpinnings with the Hyundai Venue. This compact-SUV will also be sold in petrol and diesel engine options along with automatic gearboxes.

The Kia Seltos rivals the likes of Hyundai Creta, Nissan Kicks, MG Hector, Tata Harrier and is a 5-seater SUV. Kia will be introducing their Carnival MPV as well which will offer much more than the Toyota Innova Crysta in comfort and space, but will also ask for more money. But more on that later…

Kia currently has 265 dealerships across 160 cities in India.