Hyundai Motor India, the second-ranked passenger vehicle manufacturer after Maruti Suzuki, will be banking on the Union Budget-driven measures, particularly the boost in income-tax relief, to drive sales in the coming months and year. Its wholesales of 54,003 units in January 2025 were down 5% year on year (January 2024: 57,115 units), making it the third month in a row to see a decline. In the first 10 months of FY2025, the Korean car and SUV maker has seen sales decline for six months (see data table below).
The company’s best month in the fiscal to date has been the festival-laden October 2024 (55,568 units, up 1%). So, January 2025 numbers although down YoY are its second-best monthly sales.
SUVs continue to provide the bulk of the sales for Hyundai Motor India which retails 10 models in India — two hatchbacks (Grand i10 Nios, i20), two sedans (Aura, Verna) and seven SUVs (Creta, Creta Electric, Venue, Alcazar, Exter, and Tucson along with the all-electric Ioniq 5). The company has, in mid-2024, pulled out the all-electric Kona from the market.
The Creta midsize SUV, which is currently India’s best-selling model in this segment, received a boost with the launch of the zero-emission avatar, the Creta Electric on January 17. According to the company, the Creta and the Creta Electric together have sold 18,522 units in January 2025. This is brand Creta’s best-ever monthly dispatches, beating the previous best (October 2024: 17,497 units) and accounts for a 34% share of Hyundai Motor India’s overall passenger vehicle sales last month.
This also means that total Creta sales in the first 10 months of FY2025 at 160,495 units constitute 32% of the company’s total PV wholesales of 499,199 units, which are down 2% YoY (April 2023-January 2024: 511,519 units).
Hyundai Motor India sold a total of 614,717 PVs in FY2024. This means it still needs to sell another 115,599 units in the coming two months to surpass that record total in FY2025. Will it manage to do that? Clearly, the Creta and the Creta Electric will be called upon to deliver the goods.