Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Euisin Chung visits India amid IPO buzz | Autocar Professional

Amid buzz around the Initial Public Offering in India, the global CEO and Chairman of Hyundai Motor Group visited the country this week to review the local operations, Autocar Professional learns exclusively.

Sources said, Chairman Euisun Chung and CEO Chang Jae-Hoon visited India and held a series of meetings in their Gurgaon office on Tuesday. Apart from meeting the top brass of the Indian operation, the chairman addressed all the employees of Hyundai Motor through a town hall webcast across locations.

India is the third largest market for Hyundai Motor Group and accounts for 14% of its global sales. Sources said the global management noted that given the strong potential of growth of the Indian market the brand should gun for a market share of 20% in the long run from its current share of about 15-16%.

In his town hall address, Chung mentioned to employees that India will continue to play a bigger role in the future. On its part, Hyundai Motor will focus on EVs in the future, with a larger contribution from the local R&D centre in Hyderabad – which would lead to high localisation content.

To that effect, Hyundai Motor has already entered a partnership with Exide Industries for the localisation of cells and batteries to create local value addition and aggressive prices. On the infrastructure front, the company plans to have its own network of 500 chargers by the end of 2030. 

Autocar Professional learns that the company is readying at least two major mainstream electric vehicles for the Indian market – starting with Creta based EV in 2025 followed by a mass-market compact EV scheduled for 2026, apart from the top-of-the-line Ioniq family of premium EVs.  

This was Hyundai Motor chairman’s second visit to India in less than a year – underlining the growing scope of the market in the global operations. 

Chung had previously visited the Chennai factory in August of 2023 to define the EV road map for the country. Since then, the company has committed over Rs 33,000 crore investment towards the Indian market which is predominantly set to go towards electric vehicles.

Some of the employees took to social media to post pictures with the global chairman and CEO. 

An email sent to Hyundai Motor India did not elicit any response. While the company’s priority is on EVs, the top management deliberated on the potential hybrid vehicles as part of the future offerings, which will make its way in the market, added sources.

Apart from volume growth, there is an emphasis on revenue and profitability with a strong focus on localisation. 

Hyundai Motor India’s strategic call to move away from compact cars to mid-size vehicles over the last half a decade has started to give results on the bottom line.

The company ended FY23 with revenue of Rs 60,000 crore and profits of Rs 4653 crore, the highest amongst the non-listed car manufacturers in the country.

Hyundai expects the new plant in Talegaon to bring in incremental volumes and new products needed to grow in India to about 1 million units. With the expansion of the plant capacity in Sriperumbudur to 8.5 lakh units and incremental capacity planned at Talegaon of over 1.3 lakh units, Hyundai Motor India is prepared for future growth.  

During his previous visit, the company had guided for the launch of 5 electric vehicles by 2032. The South Korean car maker had then forecasted that it expects the India market to sell 5 million passenger cars by 2030, of which 48% will be SUVs and and 48% of that will be SUVs and 30% EVs.

“The country is also becoming an increasingly important centre for electric vehicle production and sales. The Indian government is pursuing a strong electrification policy, to increase EV sales to 30% of total vehicle sales by 2030,” the company had noted in a statement in August 2023.  

The South Korean carmaker had then stressed its R&D arm HMIE plays an important role in increasing sales in the Indian market and works closely with the Hyundai-Kia Namyang R&D centre in Korea to develop vehicles that are tailored for the Indian market.

In addition to strengthening local R&D capabilities, HMIE will expand its role as a hub for future mobility research, including electrification, autonomous driving, and the development of voice recognition technology in local Indian languages.