Kia’s first made-in-India SUV, which shook up the midsize SUV segment after launch in August 2019, registers new sales milestone and remains the OEM’s best-selling model. Second-gen Seltos, launched this January, gets off to a solid start with 10,639 units sold in its first month. Will the tech-laden, high-on-safety SUV once again play disruptor?
05 Feb 2026 | 934 Views | By Ajit Dalvi
The Seltos, Kia India’s first locally manufactured vehicle, has surpassed the 600,000-unit milestone in domestic market sales. From launch in August 2019 till end-January 2026, the midsize SUV has sold a total of 602,390 units (wholesales) in India and nearly 160,000 units exported. Combined domestic and exported sales are over ...
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The Seltos, Kia India’s first locally manufactured vehicle, has surpassed the 600,000-unit milestone in domestic market sales. From launch in August 2019 till end-January 2026, the midsize SUV has sold a total of 602,390 units (wholesales) in India and nearly 160,000 units exported. Combined domestic and exported sales are over 750,000 units over six-and-a-half years.
Armed with more features, more space, more comfort and more luxury, the 16-variant Kia Seltos shook up the midsize SUV market soon after launch and helped make a relatively unknown Korean brand a household name in India. In its very first month of sale (August 2019: 6,236 units), the Seltos debuted in the India Top 5 UVs list and also outsold the made-in-Korea Seltos by 127 units.
On January 2, 2026, Kia India launched the second-generation Seltos, built off the brand-new global K3 platform, with pricing starting at Rs 10.99 lakh ex-showroom. Longer, wider and with more cabin space, Kia India will be hoping the new Seltos, which is high on technology features as well as safety, once again disrupts the segment like the first-gen model did.
FY2024 (100,423 units) best fiscal year yet for the Seltos. New second-gen model launched in January 2026 promises to revive demand for Kia India’s best-selling SUV which has crossed 600,000 sales.
The first-generation Seltos was followed by a facelifted model in July 2023 (centre) and a year later by a refreshed avatar.
At launch in 2019, the Seltos, whose name is derived from ‘Celtos’, the son of Hercules in Greek mythology, squarely targeted millennials and tech-savvy buyers scouting for an SUV that stood out from the crowd. Furthermore, Kia’s strategy to offer multiple variants at different price-points at launch appealed to buyers and caught the competition off-guard. Not surprisingly, Seltos wholesales in the last eight months of FY2020 were 81,717 units and the SUV helped Kia cement itself in the Top 5 passenger vehicle OEMs.
The Seltos’ stellar performance saw it bag top honours and three titles at the Autocar India Awards 2020 – Car of the Year, Midsize SUV of the Year and Viewer’s Choice Car of the Year – and helped Kia India win the Manufacturer of the Year for getting its first product for India spot-on.
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, which brought the world to its knees, the Seltos maintained its sales momentum in both FY2021 (89,173 units) and FY2022 (95,929 units) and then crossed the 100,000 milestone for the first time in FY2023 (100,132 units).
However, increased competition in the midsize SUV market after FY2023 slowed down sales. FY2024’s 100,423 units were just 291 units more than in FY2023. In FY2025, Seltos sales fell by 27% to 72,618 units. and in the first four months of FY2026, the 23,452 units are down 6.56% YoY (April-July 2024: 25,123 units), as per SIAM wholesales data.
In FY2026’s first nine months, the Seltos’ 51,759 units were down 2.6% YoY (April-December 2024: 53,177 units). The launch of the facelifted Seltos on January 2, 2026 has revived sales and how. The 10,639 units are a 64% YoY jump (January 2025: 6,470 units) and accounts for 39% of Kia India’s PV sales of 27,603 units (up 10% YoY). This has helped 10-month wholesales rise 5% to 62,398 units (April 2024-January 2025: 59,647 units).
The Seltos’ sibling, the Sonet compact SUV, though outsold its bigger brother in January 2026 with 10,998 units and is also Kia India’s No. 1 model in the current fiscal with 92,380 units. Nevertheless, the Seltos remains Kia India’s best-selling model, accounting for 42% of the OEM’s 1.42 million UVs sold in the domestic market and 52% (till December 2025) of the 299,320 made-in-India vehicles shipped to overseas markets.
New Seltos, which sold 10,639 units in its first month of sale, has its work cut out as it takes on a growing midsize SUV market bristling with a number of rivals.
Proof of the new Seltos revving up Kia India’s sales is that the midsize SUV hit five-figure sales (10,639 units) after a gap of 25 months. The last time the Seltos had sold over 10,000 units in a month was in November 2023 (11,684 units). The MY2026 second-gen Seltos though has its work cut out as it takes on the midsize SUV market leader Hyundai Creta along with the recently launched Maruti Victoris (which has sold over 50,000 units in 5 months), Toyota Hyryder, Maruti Grand Vitara, Tata Curvv, Volkswagen Taigun, Skoda Kushaq and the MG Astor.
The new MY2026 Seltos has three engine options on offer: a 115hp, 1.5-litre naturally aspirated petrol, a 116hp, 1.5-litre turbo-diesel, and a 160hp, 1.5-litre turbo-petrol, all available with manual and automatic gearboxes. Fuel efficiency is a claimed 19.1kpl for the diesel AT and up to 17.9kpl for the petrol engines.
The Kia Seltos interior features premium leatherette upholstery, a 10.25-inch infotainment touchscreen and digital driver’s display, ambient lighting, ventilated front seats, panoramic sunroof, dual-zone climate control and heads-up display. In terms of safety equipment, the Seltos comes with six airbags as standard, ESC, rear parking sensors, front and rear disc brakes, TPMS, traction control, ABS with EBD, ISOFIX child seat anchor points, a 360-degree camera and Level 2 ADAS in higher variants.
Kia India expects the new Seltos to deliver the goods in CY2026 and beyond. The Korean OEM has strategically launched the new model at a time when the SUV market is witnessing growing demand for midsize SUVs. The company expects the second-gen model to benefit from replacement demand from previous Seltos owners, attract buyers from even a segment above (executive SUVs like the Mahindra XUV700, Tata Harrier and Safari) as well as those keen on upgrading from compact SUVs.
It’s early days yet for the new Seltos but what is sure is that rival midsize SUV OEMs will be keeping tabs on the model’s growth trajectory.
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