Kia Motors, a part of the Hyundai group, is eyeing the Indian market. This news was first broken by Autocar India (May 2010 issue), and now, in a recent report in a South Korean daily, Chosun Ilbo, the company has said that it wants to build a plant in India to produce 300,000 vehicles a year starting from 2012.
"We're conducting a feasibility study to select a site for the plant near Chennai," a Kia
spokesperson said. "Based on data from Hyundai Motor which entered the Indian market in 1998,
we're estimating costs and time to build the plant, as well as examining demand forecasts and
Hyundai's sales figures there," he added.
Kia's move has been apparently motivated by its wish to find an alternative market to Europe, the
destination of the majority of its exports, where demand has been sluggish due to the recession.
Incidentally, HMIL has also been looking at diversifying its export destination
Hyundai has two plants in Chennai with a combined annual output of 600,000 cars. Of the 560,000
units produced at the plants last year, Hyundai sold 290,000 in India. Kia’s line up includes models such as the Picanto, Sorento, Sportage, Ceed and Forte.