While the first 100,000 Exter SUVs were sold in just 13 months after launch, the run from 100,001 to 200,000 units in early January 2026 has taken a little over 17 months which reflects the intensified competition in the compact SUV market
16 Jan 2026 | 274 Views | By Ajit Dalvi
The Exter, Hyundai Motor India’s second compact SUV launched on July 10, 2023, has crossed the 200,000 wholesales milestone in the domestic market. As per SIAM data, the Exter had clocked a total of 199,289 units from launch till end-December 2025. The minuscule gap of 711 units to the 200,000 ...
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The Exter, Hyundai Motor India’s second compact SUV launched on July 10, 2023, has crossed the 200,000 wholesales milestone in the domestic market. As per SIAM data, the Exter had clocked a total of 199,289 units from launch till end-December 2025. The minuscule gap of 711 units to the 200,000 mark would have been bridged in the first week of January 2026.
This means the Exter has taken two-and-a-half years to achieve the latest sales milestone. However, the promise of strong and sustained future growth this Hyundai SUV displayed in its first year of sales seems to have been belied.
As the wholesales data depicts, demand for the Hyundai Exter has slowed down in the face of intense competition in the compact SUV market.
The Exter’s first major sales milestone came in August 2024 when it clocked 100,000 sales 13 months after launch – that’s one month more than Hyundai’s first compact SUV (the Venue) took to hit the same mark. In April 2025, the Exter drove past a cumulative 150,000 units, taking 21 months to achieve the milestone. In terms of the 0-150,000 sales run, the Exter took the same 21 months as did the Kia Sonet but was slower than the Maruti Fronx (14 months) or the Tata Punch (15 months). The 200,000-units milestone coming up in 30 months from launch means that the run from 100,000 to 200,000 has taken a little over 17 months, reflecting the much-increased competition in the hottest segment of the UV market: compact SUVs.
The compact SUV market bristles with a raft of 20-odd rivals including the Tata Nexon and Punch, Maruti Brezza, sibling Venue, Kia Sonet, Mahindra XUV300 and, more recently, the Skoda Kylaq. However, Exter’s chief rivals include what could rather be termed as mini or micro-SUVs – the Punch, Nissan Magnite, Citroen C3 and even the Maruti Suzuki Wagon R due to the latter’s tall-boy design.
In the past 30 months since the Exter’s launch, Hyundai Motor India has sold a total of 10,08,037 SUVs. With 199,289 units (till end-December 2025), the Exter’s contribution to Hyundai SUV sales has been 20 percent. This is below its compact SUV sibling Venue’s 30% (299,532 units) and the company’s best-selling model, the Creta midsize SUV’s 46% (462,786 units).
In CY2025, which saw the utility vehicle segment register record wholesales of 2.95 million units and grow its share of the passenger vehicle market to 66%, the Hyundai Exter with 67,908 units, down 20% YoY (CY2024: 84,368 units), was ranked No. 19 in the Top 30 UV listing. This is four ranks below the No. 15 position it had in CY2024.
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