Hyundai, Kia SUV sales rise in 2020

With only 7,07,152 units sold, SUV sales declined in 2020. Hyundai and Kia, however, refute the trend with new launches. Other players like Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra, and Tata reflect negative growth in the segment.

It's no secret that 2020 has been a roller coaster of a year for the automotive space. While the pandemic put a complete stop to all production and sales operations for almost two months, the pent-up demand really took the industry by surprise. Another big revelation was the overall decline in sales of SUVs. On the whole, 7,07,152 SUVs were sold in 2020 – without the inclusion of vans and MPVs – which is a considerable decline from the 7,54,892 units sold in 2019. But these numbers only tell half the story.

Hyundai and Kia really seem to have made a solid impact on the SUV space. With 96,989 units of the Creta sold, Hyundai is really ruling the roost in the mid-size SUV space. The Korean carmaker has also managed to get substantial contributions from the Venue. More than 82,000 units of the sub-4 metre SUV were sold in 2020. With these two products leading the charge, Hyundai sold 1,80,237 SUVs last year – resulting in a near 3% gain in market share in the segment. This growth, of course, has a lot to do with the launch of the second-generation Creta.

In the remaining four months after the launch of the Seltos in August 2019, Kia managed to sell more than 45,000 units. In the first year of its being on sale – discounting the two months of lockdown – the Seltos managed to sell 96,932 units. But the bigger news really is the Sonet. From its launch in September until the end of the year, Kia managed to sell more than 38,000 units of the compact SUV, resulting in overall SUV sales of 1,35,295.

With SUVs from both manufacturers have gained tremendous popularity, sales of rival brands in the segment have clearly taken a hit. For instance, top-ranking SUV player Mahindra could only register 1,30,192 units in 2020 in comparison to 1,89,406 units in 2019. Maruti Suzuki’s SUV sales went down from 1,45,836 units in 2019 to just 98,939 units in 2020. Tata experienced a similar decline in sales, which went down to 63,109 units last year as opposed to 70,829 units in 2019.

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