Hyundai Motor India Ltd., the country's second-largest carmaker, expects monthly sales of its premium mid-size sedan, Elantra to grow to 500 units from 400 units per month, helped by a price cut of up to Rs 167,641. The discount offering for a week ends on Thursday.
In the eight months ending today, the wholly-owned subsidiary of South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co has sold about 4,160 Elantra cars against its target of 6,000 cars for this financial year that will end March.
"We are now averaging over 400 Elantra cars per month. This should touch 500 units in the remaining months of this financial year," Hyundai Motor India president, B V R Subbu said.
The discount campaign will lure buyers. "It is to create an excitement for the Elantra," Subbu said.
The discount offer on three variants of Elantra celebrates sales of 700,000 cars since Hyundai began operations in September 1998.
The Elantra discount scheme followed a price cut offer in early November on Hyundai's flagship car, Santro. During the three-day long price cut offer, customers ordered 26,600 Santros. Non-discount sales of Santro totalled roughly 18,000 in October, Subbu said.
The discount offer on Santro was to make-up the 14,000-unit sale loss in April-June because Hyundai had to cut domestic sales to meet export orders, Subbu said. Santro is the single largest selling model from Hyundai.
In contrast, the discount on Elantra is to boost sales and meet competition from General Motors' Chevrolet Optra, Toyota's Corolla and Mitsubishi Lancer, industry officials said.
Hyundai began selling Elantra in India in April. It was the fifth model introduced by the company in the Indian market. It also manufactures compact cars Santro and Getz, mid-size Accent and luxury sedan Sonata at its plant near Chennai. It also imports and sells the sports-utility-vehicle, Teraccan.
Until Thursday, the ex-showroom Delhi price of the base model of the 1800cc petrol Elantra has been slashed by Rs 132,836 to Rs 747,747, while that of the GLS model has been cut by Rs 167,641 to Rs 799,999.
The price of the 2000cc diesel model, Elantra CRDi is cut Rs 81,353 to Rs 977,777.
According to Subbu, the diesel model accounts for 70per cent of the total sales of the Elantra, while the two petrol models account for the rest.
Hyundai's main competitors are Maruti Udyog Ltd., Tata Motors Ltd. and Ford India Pvt Ltd. in India. Subbu said the company expects to sell over 200,000 cars in 2004. During January-October, it sold 172,169 cars, which included exports of 60,710 units.
By December end, its capacity will be expanded by 100,000 units to 250,000 units to meet domestic and export demand.
