The Kia Sonet facelift has crossed the 1,00,000 sales milestone in 11 months since its launch in January, and variants with a sunroof accounted for 79 percent of it, the South Korean car brand noted. Eighteen variants (petrol and diesel combined) of the Sonet come equipped with a single-pane sunroof, excluding the entry-level HTE and HTK trims.
- Diesel variants make up for about 24 percent of total Sonet sales
- About 66 percent of the demand for the Sonet is for manual versions
While Sonet’s line-up starts at Rs 7.99 lakh (ex-showroom, India), prices for its sunroof models range between Rs 8.31 (HTE (O)) and 14.91 lakh (X-Line). Notably, the compact SUV was also featured among the 10 bestselling UVs of 2024.
Kia further stated that 76 percent of Sonet sales came from variants with petrol engines – 1.0-litre turbo and 1.2-litre naturally aspirated. “The 1.2-litre petrol engine brings the most buyers for the Sonet,” Kia India MD and CEO Gwanggu Lee told Autocar India during an interview earlier. The rest came from the 1.5-litre diesel motor, which also powers the larger Kia Seltos and, most recently, the Syros.
As for the transmission, automatic (including iMT) variants make up about 34 percent of the sales, and the remaining demand is for manual versions.
From March 2021 to August 2025, the compact SUV had a 37 percent share in Kia’s overall sales, second only to the Seltos’ 48 percent share. The pre-facelift Sonet also crossed the 1,00,000 sales figure within a year of its debut. The sales goal of 1,50,000 units was achieved in 2022, followed by 2,50,000 units in 2023. The run from 2,50,000 to 3,50,000 units took about 15 months. The Sonet rivals the Tata Nexon, Mahindra XUV 3XO and Hyundai Venue.
Kia India has completed almost 1.6 million vehicle dispatches from its Anantapur plant, including over 1.2 million domestic sales and over 3.67 lakh exports.
Hormazd Sorabjee
Anurag Chaturvedi
