Hyundai is currently on the look out for a new plant in India and will be investing Rs. 4500 crores on the same that will help boost its total production capacity to over 1 million units.
Having spent almost two decades in India, Hyundai has catapulted itself to be one of the most prominent players in the Indian automotive industry with a 16.6 percent market share, only second to the country’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki. In recent years, the South Korean automaker has managed to hit the bullseye with almost every product and is witnessing optimum capacity utilisation at its current facility in Tamil Nadu. Now, fuelling its expansion plans in India, the company will be investing Rs. 4500 crores over a new facility in order to increase its production capacity.
Hyundai India is on the lookout for a new plant and is already lobbying with several states including Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh for the location. The manufacturer currently has a single facility near Chennai, Tamil Nadu that caters to its domestic as well as export demand and is running on full steam. Hence, the company is facing a major capacity crunch limiting its growth plans. In fact, Hyundai even moved some of production for exports out of the plant, to address domestic demand. That said, the company isn’t looking to expand around the existing facility, given the labour unrest it has faced in the past.
The new plant will see an annual production capacity of 3-4 lakhs initially, which will be scalable. Hyundai however, did not commit a timeline for production to commence at the new plant. With 14.5 percent contributed to the company’s global sales, India is an important market for Hyundai and the automaker is working on several new products to expand its market share in the country. Having launched the Creta last week, the company made its foray into the compact SUV space and has already garnered 18,000 bookings. There is also an MPV under development that will hit the market in the following year.
