Hyundai Motor has denied a news report that it would move its Click car model’s assembly line from Ulsan, South Gyeongsang Province, to India to curtail currency risks but has said it plans to increase Indian production of the compact vehicle, according to the Korea Herald.
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Hyundai recently began shipping the smaller Indian-built Amica to the UK after making changes to the RHD specification to suit this market.
“As our second Indian plant is scheduled to break ground soon, we could increase the production of the Click (called Getz for export), depending on the market demand,” Lee Yong-hoon, senior executive vice president of Hyundai Motor, told the Korea Herald.
The automaker is currently churning out 20,000 Getz cars annually at the factory in the southern Indian city of Chennai. More than 90% of the 180,000 Clicks made in Ulsan are exported, the report noted.
Hyundai Motor India, which plans to expand production to 600,000 vehicles per year by 2007, also makes the Santro (Amica in some markets), Accent (Verna), Elantra (Avante) and Sonata and also exports the Santro and Accent, the Korea Herald added.
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By GlobalData“Among the 251,000 cars built at our Indian plant last year, 99% were compacts,” a Hyundai official told the paper. The country’s demand for small cars (Santro, Getz, Accent, Elantra) is expected to rise from this year’s 600,000 units to 960,000 units in 2010.
The report said the subsidiary rolled out its millionth car last week, seven and a half years after it began production. Aiming to increase domestic market share from the current 18 to 20%, the company plans to devote its second factory to the best-selling Santro/Amica.
