Hyundai's Venue becomes leader in utility vehicle segment despite slowdown

Hyundai Motor India Limited's (HMIL) recently launched Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) Venue has become the highest selling car in Utility Vehicle (UV) segment, overtaking its competitors Maruti Suzuki and Mahindra, despite overall downturn in the automobile industry in India. Hyundai's SUV marketshare has grown to 21 per cent with the combined sale of Venue, Creta and Tucson, said the company.

According to data available, Venue has seen an increase in sale from May, 2019 and has overtook Maruti's Brezza in July, 2019. The sale of Venue grew by 9.3 per cent to 9,585 units in July 2019, as compared to 8,763 units in the previous month, while Brezza has seen a decline of 40 per cent in sales in July to 5,302 units compared to 8,871 units in the month of June, this year. Mahindra's XUV, which has been in the third position in the segment, has seen a decline of 6.82 per cent in July, 2019, to 4,464 units compared to 4,769 units in June.

HMIL, with its four models - Creta, Venue, Tucson and Kona Electric - in the UV segment, stood in the first place in the segment with sales in the wholesale level at 16,234 units. Mahindra with seven models including XUV 500, TUV 300, XUV 300, KUV100, Scorpio, Bolero and Thar stood at the second place with 16,003 units and Maruti, with four models including S-Cross, Brezza, Ertiga and Gypsy, has sold 15,178 units in the month.

HMIL, a late entrant to the UV segment with its first launch in 2015, has become the leader in the segment for the first time due to the high demand of Venue. 

Vikas Jain, National Head - Sales of Hyundai Motor India said “We are overwhelmed with 50,000 bookings in just 60 days of its launch and over 35 per cent of customers have preferred the Hyundai’s in house Best in Segment -DCT (Dual Clutch Transmission) Technology. Our SUV market share is now 21 per cent with the combined sales of Venue, Creta and Tucson.”

Maruti has been at the top in the segment after it launched its subcompact SUV Vitara Brezza. It lead the segment in the year 2018-19 with sales of over 1,57,880 units and  a marketshare of 44 per cent, said the company officials recently.

HMIL's overall sale has declined by 3.8 per cent in July, at 57,310 units as compared to 59,590 units in the same period last year.