In April, two unusual things happened in the Indian automotive sector – Hyundai’s Creta became India’s largest-selling car, and yet Hyundai was pushed out of the top-3 by Mahindra and Tata, with Maruti Suzuki as the leader.
Data collated from the Society of Indian Automotive Manufacturers (SIAM) shows that, in FY25, sales of the Creta grew 20% (from 162,773 units in FY24 to 194,871 units in FY25), but sales of all its other models combined (i10 Nios, i20, Aura, Exter, Venue, Verna, Alcazar, Tucson, and Ioniq 5) dropped 10% – from 451,948 units to 403,795 units.
At the same time, the sales share of the Creta within the Hyundai portfolio increased from 26.5% in FY24 (162,773 units of the Creta sold, of the total 614,721 Hyundai cars), to a whopping 32.6% in FY25 (194,871 units of the Creta sold, of the total 598,666 Hyundai cars) – basically, every third car sold by Hyundai is a Creta.
Is Hyundai becoming a single-model brand – something like Honda used to be during the successful days of the City, or Ford during the times of the EcoSport, or Renault when the Duster ruled?
Industry analysts told FE that this isn’t a new phenomenon. Business and brand strategy expert Harish Bijoor said that all auto brands suffer from this inequity at some or the other point in time, when growth and volume tend to get concentrated in one big model. “Hyundai is possibly on that track as well,” he said. “What’s happening here can be termed as the Pareto Principle – the 80/20 rule (80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes) – and in business context, this means that 80% of a company’s sales are driven by 20% of its products.”
It’s prevalent in the two-wheeler sector as well – Hero MotoCorp, for example, is overly reliant on the Splendor motorcycle, HMSI on the Activa scooter, TVS Motor on the Apache series, and Bajaj Auto on the Pulsar.
Coming to Hyundai, sales of most of its models slipped in FY25: the Venue dropped from 128,897 units in FY24 to 119,113 units in FY25; that of the i10 Nios dropped from 70,764 units to 62,415 units; i20 sales skidded from 69,988 units to 55,513 units; of the Aura from 55,215 units to 54,945 units, of the Alcazar from 20,753 units to 17,132 units, of the Verna from 30,027 units to 15,593 units, of the Tucson from 2,883 units to 1,319 units, and of the Ioniq 5 from 1,400 units to 353 units. While sales of the Exter grew marginally from 71,301 units in FY24 to 77,412 units in FY25, it must be noted that the model was launched late in FY24, and thus didn’t have full-year FY24 sales performance.
But analysts added that Hyundai is unlikely to go the route of Honda, Ford, or Renault – which couldn’t recover once their respective star models faded – for two reasons.
First, other models haven’t failed, but are seeing a temporary pause. “The Venue is a successful car, and a reason for its sales dropping is that people are possibly waiting for the next-gen Venue to be launched later this year. Once that arrives, the sales share of the Venue will rise. The Ioniq 5 facelift is also expected this year,” said an analyst. “Although two concerning factors are that the new Alcazar – launched in September 2024 – hasn’t done well, and the new Verna has failed to energise the sedan segment.”
He added that Hyundai might have a trick or two up its sleeve – for instance, on May 6, it launched two new variants of the Exter, introducing the sunroof and AMT gearbox at a lower price point, which will likely boost its sales. “Expect such appealing variants in other models, too,” he said.
The second reason is that unlike Honda, Ford, or Renault – for whom India operations were tiny compared to their global business, and couldn’t ready champion successors to their star cars – Hyundai is hugely invested in India, and the country accounted for 18.5% of Hyundai’s global sales in 2024. A few days ago, Hyundai allocated Rs 1,500 crore towards revamping its Chennai manufacturing facility, and later this year it will commence operations at its new Talegaon plant in Maharashtra, from where new models could be launched. Those models are expected to take the pressure off the Creta.