Hyundai India: An Able Challenger to Maruti Suzuki?

The new ‘Grand i10’ launched by Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL) in September, 2013, got 10,000 bookings within 20 days of its launch. The Grand i10 was the first small car from HMIL launched with a diesel engine and was well received in the market. Some other higher priced cars from the stable of HMIL like the Hyundai Elantra and Fluidic Verna launched in India in 2011 and 2012, too, were a big hit and overtook the market leaders in their respective segments, the Toyota Motor Corporation’s (Toyota) Corolla and Honda Motor Company, Limited’s (Honda) City in sales.

The success of such high priced models boosted the image of HMIL from being a manufacturer of small, affordable cars to that of an automobile giant which could produce bigger and more sophisticated cars. Slowly but steadily, Hyundai started to emerge as a leader in most of the segments of the Indian automobile industry........