Hyundai India is getting ready to launch an all new SUV on 21st May. Called Venue, this is a sub 4 meter SUV which will take on the likes of Maruti Brezza, Tata Nexon, Ford EcoSport and Mahindra XUV300.
This is a high volume segment, which accounts for 25k to 30k units monthly sales on average. It is also a highly competitive segment. On top of the sales chart is Maruti Brezza, with about 15k monthly sales, followed by Tata Nexon at 5k units, Mahindra XUV300 at 4k units and Ford EcoSport at 3k units (average monthly sales).
Now, Hyundai is going to enter this segment with Venue. Production has already started at company plant in Chennai and so has dispatch to dealers. Deliveries will start from 21st May, from the same day as launch.
Speaking about sales to The Telegraph, Hyundai aims to sell about 9k-10k units of Venue a month. Where will get these sales from? The sub 4m suddenly will not get extra new buyers in the segment. Which means most of Venue sales will be result of eating into the sales of rival cars, and also some of Creta.
Hyundai aims that together, Venue and Creta will help the carmaker to generate about 20k sales a month (10k + 10k). This will make Hyundai the largest SUV maker in the country – a title which currently belongs to Maruti Suzuki India, thanks to Brezza.
Even if Hyundai fails to manage 20k sales monthly from Creta plus Venue, they could still become the largest SUV maker, but it will a few months – thanks to Maruti deciding to ending production of their diesel cars from April 2020.
Maruti Brezza is only offered with a diesel engine. And with Maruti deciding to end production of diesel engines, they will have to launch petrol variant of Brezza. And it is not clear if petrol Brezza will manage to similar kind of numbers as managed by diesel Brezza.
Speaking about Hyundai Venue, it will be the first connected car powered by eSIM 4G internet tech. It will come in with petrol and diesel engine options. There will be a 1.2 liter petrol engine, a 1.0 liter turbocharged petrol motor and a 1.4 liter diesel engine. Transmission options on offer are 7 speed auto DSG as well as manual transmission.
The internet enabled features of Venue will deliver updates to owner’s phone. Info like driving behavior, share the destination, Real time vehicle tracking , Share and track vehicle location by family, Out-of-area alert, Speed Alert, Time fencing alert, Valet Alert, Idle Alert, etc will be sent to owners phone in real time. Only time will tell if these features help Venue generate sales expected by Hyundai India, and thereby become the largest SUV maker in the country.
