The midsize SUV has contributed 44% of Kia India's domestic sales and established the brand as a major player in the Indian market.
22 Aug 2025 | 11227 Views | By Ajit Dalvi
The Seltos, which helped make a relatively unknown Korean brand a household name in India, was launched on August 22, 2019. Since then, the midsize SUV, which comes with refined petrol and diesel engines and a premium and feature-laden cabin, accounts for 44% of Kia India’s 1.28 million vehicles sold ...
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The Seltos, which helped make a relatively unknown Korean brand a household name in India, was launched on August 22, 2019. Since then, the midsize SUV, which comes with refined petrol and diesel engines and a premium and feature-laden cabin, accounts for 44% of Kia India’s 1.28 million vehicles sold in the domestic market and 54% of the 286,120 made-in-India Kia vehicles exported.
The Kia Seltos, the first product from Korean car and SUV manufacturer to be launched in India in August 2019, has turned six years old today. Launched on August 22, 2019, the midsize SUV has, till end-July 2025, sold a total of 563,444 units in India and 154,292 units as exports. This gives the Kia Seltos a total of 717,736 units.
While the 563,444 units sold in India account for a 44% share of Kia India’s total domestic market sales of 1.28 million vehicles (12,86,145 units), the 154,292 exports till end-July 2025 make for a 54% share of Kia India’s total exports of 286,120 units till date (see Seltos sales data table below).
The Seltos is Kia India’s No. 1 export model with a total of 154,292 units shipped to overseas markets. This gives the midsize SUV a 54% share of the total 286,120 utility vehicles that the company has exported from CY2019 till end-July 2025. It is well ahead of sibling Sonet, which has seen exports of over 103,000 units till end-June 2205.
The Seltos has a lot going for it and is all that a midsize SUV is meant to be, including a premium and feature-laden cabin. As per Autocar India’s buyer’s guide commentary, “The Seltos is one of the most complete midsize SUVs in the market. It is packed with features like ADAS, a panoramic sunroof, dual curved screens, and it’s stylish too. There is a wide range of powertrain options: a 1.5 diesel, a 1.5 petrol and a punch 1.5 turbo, each available with manual, IMT or automatic gearboxes.”
Powering brand Kia into the mainstream
The Seltos, whose name is derived from ‘Celtos’, the son of Hercules in Greek mythology, has been instrumental making Kia, a brand which was relatively unknown in India five years ago, into a household name. The Seltos, which like other Kia India models, rolls out of the state-of-the-art plant in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, is currently available in 22 variants comprising 12 petrol and 10 diesel, with pricing starting at Rs 12.85 lakh for the base 1.5 THE (O) petrol variant through to Rs 23.52 lakhfor the top-end 1.5 CRDi X-Line AT (on-road Delhi).
Squarely targeted at millennials and tech-savvy buyers scouting for an SUV that stood out from the crowd, 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.
Importantly, it helped the Kia brand cement itself in the Top 5 passenger vehicle OEMs within a few months of launch. 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, since then, sales have slowed down amidst increasing competition in the midsize SUV market. 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.
The Sonet compact SUV, which Kia India launched in September 2020, was the company’s best-selling product in FY2025 (99,805 units) and went ahead of the Seltos for the first time in a fiscal. In the current fiscal’s April-July 2025 period, the Seltos with 23,452 units sold in India is ranked third in Kia India’s model range, behind the Sonet (30,407 units) and the Carens MPV (25,306 units).
Demand is picking up once again for the Seltos in the current fiscal and it has clocked over 6,000 units in three of the four months of FY2026, with 6,135 units in April 2025 being the highest.
Since its market entry six years ago with a single product (Seltos), Kia India is now a formidable player in India’s passenger vehicle market with nine vehicles – the Seltos, Sonet and Syros compact SUVs, Carens, Carens Clavis, Carens Clavis EV and Carnival MPVs, and the EV6 and EV9 – and a sales and service network spread across nearly 750 touchpoints across 329 cities.
Also Read: Kia India produces 1.5 millionth vehicle, Seltos and Sonet command 81% share