Kia Motors India zips past 25,000 Seltos sales three months after launch

Three months after Kia Motors India began selling its first product – the Seltos SUV – the company has notched its best monthly sales yet – 12,850 units – and crossed the 25,000-unit milestone in the domestic market. The carmaker reportedly sold 2,184 Seltos SUVs on Dhanteras (October 25), which is popular in India for purchase of a new vehicle, among other consumer buys.

Cumulative sales for the August-October 2019 period add up to 26,640 units, which constitutes a monthly average of 8,880 units, which is very good going for a new car brand in the country.

Kia Motors India says it has received over 60,000 bookings for the Seltos till now and, to ensure timely deliveries, has started the second shift to ramp up  production at its manufacturing facility in Anantapur. The company says it will not close bookings as the plant is fully capable of meeting the rising demand for the Seltos. 

As per apex body SIAM's industry statistics, the Seltos, which was officially launched in India on August 22, sold a total of 6,236 units that month and opened the Korean carmaker’s Utility Vehicle market share account with 1.72 percent to its name. That number also saw it become India's fourth best-selling UV, entering the Top 5 UV chart in its very first month of sale. 

In September, the company despatched 7,554 units to its showrooms across the country, moving up to third place in the Top 5 UV chart, and expanding its UV market share to 3.09 percent. Now with robust October sales, the company is well placed as a strong challenger brand to the Maruti Vitara Brezza and the Hyundai Venue, the top two SUVs in the best-sellers' list. 

Kia Motors India, which got 6,046 bookings on a single day when online bookings opened on July 17, currently has over 50,000 bookings in hand and is aggressively driving production at its 300,000 units per annum Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh plant to meet the surging demand for the Seltos.

What is helping the BS VI-ready Seltos make headway in the competitive Indian SUV market is its very aggressive pricing. The Korean carmaker's pricing strategy for all of 16 variants covers virtually every price point and starts from Rs 969,000 (for the entry level petrol Smartstream G1.5 HTE model) and goes up to Rs 15.99 lakh (for the diesel 1.5 CRDi HTX plus (6AT) and Petrol Smartstream 1.4 T – Gdi GTX (7DCT) and GTX plus top-end variant). With this, it takes on rivals like the Hyundai Creta, MG Hector, Nissan Kicks, Mahindra XUV500 and the Renault Captur in India.

Made-in-India Seltos outsells made-in-Korea sibling
The Seltos, which is produced at two of Kia’s production facilities – in Anantapur District, Andhra Pradesh, and in Gwangju, Korea – is seeing strong demand in both markets. The robust demand for the made-in-India Seltos also means it is outselling the Korean-made Seltos.

In August, the Anantapur-produced Seltos (6,236 units) beat the made-in-Gwangju sibling by 127 units. In October, the difference is massive – 7,339 units – as the India Seltos sold 12,850 units to the Korean-made Seltos (5,511 units). Also, Kia Motors India's Seltos sales in October means it has contributed 5.16% to Kia Motors' global sales of 248,752 units last month.

Also read: Kia begins made-in-India exports with shipment of 471 Seltos SUVs