Kia Seltos achievement in bookings resonates with the company’s efforts in design, aesthetics and packaging departments
Seltos has always been a paramount offering for Kia Motors. The South Korean brand made its India debut with Seltos and has been riding a wave of success ever since. The badass Seltos has played a pivotal role in Kia India’s journey in the Asian subcontinent. New Seltos’ popularity is demonstrated by 1 lakh+ strong bookings, which is a major flexing point for Kia India.
Kia Seltos Achieve 1 Lakh+ Booking Milestone
Operating in cut-throat compact SUV segment (marketed as mid-size SUV), Kia Seltos has been a prominent name for Indian car buyers. In December 2023, sales charts positioned Kia Seltos as India’s best-selling compact SUV, surpassing the all-time best-seller, Hyundai Creta. Seltos is easily Kia’s best-seller among its Indian lineup.
Kia launched New Seltos last year (a.k.a. Seltos 2.0) and revamped its interiors and featured a prominent new exterior design. Since its launch in July 2023, New Seltos has bagged over 1 lakh bookings. The car was priced with a starting price of Rs. 10.99 lakh (ex-sh), which was a tempting proposition for prospective buyers.
On average, Kia received 13,500 bookings every month, post launch in July 2023. If we take Seltos’ overall sales endeavour since its inception in 2019, Kia mentions that they have manufactured over 6 lakh units of Seltos in India. Nearly 75% of these 6 lakh Seltos manufactured in India, were sold in the domestic market.
Customer preferences and buying trends
If we take Seltos’ sales performance in the year 2023, Kia sold 1.04 lakh units of its compact SUV offering. Now that Kia has clocked over 1 lakh bookings for the new Seltos, this is a good place for the company to analyse buying trends of customers with a large sample size. Nearly 50% of total bookings are for automatic variants.
This indicates that Seltos is popular among city dwellers, first-time car buyers and new-age customers. Diesel still garners a strong demand among Seltos buyers accounting for 42% of total Seltos bookings, while petrol variants accounted for 58%. Kia highlighted that 80% of Seltos buyers opted for sunroof-equipped variants and 80% of buyers inclined towards top variants.
The 80% figure is identical for both because Kia bundles a panoramic sunroof with top variants as standard. If a buyer opts for a top variant, he is stuck with a sunroof. Seltos Facelift offers Level-2 ADAS tech with 17 features. This safety suite proposition has attracted 40% of total Seltos bookings.
Words from the manufacturer
Commenting on Seltos success, Mr. Myung-sik Sohn, Chief Sales & Business Officer, Kia India, said, “We are excited about the market success of the new Seltos. Undoubtedly, it stands out as one of the smartest SUV choices available, and the response from our customers resonates with this sentiment.
The New Seltos is helping us consolidate our market leadership consistently in the mid-SUV segment. We are actively realigning our manufacturing processes to ensure that our customers gain access to their favourite SUVs as swiftly as possible. We are thankful to all Seltos and Kia fans in India who support and inspire us to do better with every product.”
