With chip crisis over, waiting period of our models has come down: HMIL's Tarun Garg

Tarun Garg, COO, HMIL

Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL), which has been banking heavily on technology-loaded Sports utility vehicles (SUVs) to drive up volumes, has maintained that the semiconductor crisis is over and has resulted in reduced waiting period for its bestselling models such as the Exter, Venue and Creta.

“Most of the semiconductor issues are behind us. Whenever a new model arrives, demand comes in and it takes time to ramp up the production and respond to the market. The overall waiting period has come down dramatically for all the models,” Tarun Garg, chief operating officer of HMIL, said at a roundtable meeting with reporters.

He revealed that most models are available with two-four weeks' waiting period. For the Creta, the waiting period has come down from 30 weeks to between six and eight weeks (depending on the variant) with an order backlog of 48,000-50,000 units. “Our endeavour is to further bring it down,” Garg noted.

HMIL being the country’s largest car exporter, Garg acknowledged that while there has been some marginal impact because of the Red Sea crisis, the company is working on “alternative routes” to address them.

In the domestic market, the company is witnessing unprecedented growth in non-metro cities,

As Garg put it, “The rural market is at 20 percent penetration for the Creta and other models. The growth rate of the rural market is definitely higher than the urban market and our network in the rural market is really adding to that. We are very confident that the rural market will continue to support us even better than the urban market, which is anyway doing well.”

He was speaking on the sidelines of the rollout of the N Line version of the Hyundai Creta, which was launched with a price tag of Rs 16.82 lakh (ex-showroom). With the N Line range of products, the company is seeking to address a niche yet growing segment of buyers, who are "performance-oriented".

He acknowledged that the N Line edition is slightly tilted towards the urban market. “I believe the N Line is not about volumes. It is more about taking care of the customer who represents young India. More Indian customers are getting enamoured of the WRC (World Rally Championship) and at the same time want a car which is exclusive,” said Garg.

In mid-January, HMIL launched the facelifted version of this Creta SUV at a price of Rs 10.99 lakh (ex-showroom). While nearly 157,000 units of the outgoing version of the midsize SUV were sold last year, the company managed to garner sales of 80,000 units of the new edition.

“We launched it in 2015 when the contribution of SUVs to the (passenger vehicle) industry was only 13 percent. With all humility, I strongly believe that Creta has been the flag-bearer of moving the market over (to) SUVs. After nine years, since the launch of this facelift, in February we had the highest ever monthly sales of this model at 15,000 units,” said Garg.

When asked about the sales target for the Creta this year, Garg maintained, “We are not bound by targets. Our production lines are flexible and as and when market demand comes in, we will be able to increase our volumes. We have already increased the production capacity by 50,000 units.”

He also reaffirmed that while 60 percent of the company's sales last year came from SUVs, the share will go up further to 65 percent by the end of this year.