Kia Motors India, the aggressive challenger brand in the country, today announced an additional investment of $54 million (Rs 400 crore) in Andhra Pradesh, where it has its manufacturing plant at Anantapur.
The announcement was made by Kookhyun Shim, CEO and MD, Kia Motors India at the Andhra Pradesh ‘Mana Palana-Mee Suchana’ program. He said, “We are happy to share that we will make an additional investment of $54 million for our upcoming project despite the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Kia, which is on a roll with the successful launch of the Seltos SUV and the encouraging response for the upmarket Carnival MPV, has an aggressive new product strategy in place. In August 2020, it plans to launch the Sonet compact SUV, a tech-laden Hyundai Venue and Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza fighter, available with a wide variety of powertrains, with an estimated pricing between Rs 700,000-11.5 lakh.
The Korean carmaker has already invested around $1.1 billion (Rs 8,141 crore) Anantapur, which has an existing 300,000 units-per-annum-capacity plant and the additional investment is expected further help the company ramp up production by around 100,000 to 150,000 units, as it expects to further increase sales and exports from the country.