Kia to invest Rs 400 crore to expand India operations

• Kia Motors India to make an investment of $54 million (Rs 400 crore) more

• Investment expected to boost production capacity before the launch of the Kia Sonet

Kia Motors India has announced today that it will be making an additional investment of $54 million (Rs 400 crore) in Andhra Pradesh, where it has its manufacturing plant at Anantapur.

The announcement was made by Kookhyun Shim, CEO and MD, Kia Motors India at the Andhra Pradesh ‘Mana Palana-Mee Suchana’ program. He said, “We are happy to share that we will make an additional investment of $54 million for our upcoming project despite the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Kia, which is on a roll thanks to stellar sales of the Seltos SUV and the encouraging response to the upmarket Carnival MPV, has an aggressive new product strategy in place. By August-September 2020, it plans to launch the Sonet compact SUV. This rival to the Hyundai Venue, Tata Nexon, Ford EcoSport, Mahindra XUV300  and Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza, will be available with a wide variety of powertrains, segment-leading kit and with an estimated ex-showroom price tag of Rs 7-12 lakh.

The Korean carmaker has already invested around $1.1 billion (Rs 8,141 crore) in its Anantapur plant, which has an existing production capacity of 3 lakh units per annum. The additional investment is expected to help the company ramp up production by around 1-1.5 lakh units, as it expects to increase sales and exports.