Kia India eyes 10% sales growth in 2023, bets big on Seltos facelift. Know more

Kia India is hoping to grow by 8-10 per cent in this calendar year as compared to 2022. PTI has reported that Kia India is hopeful that the improved chip supply chain and launch of the Seltos facelift in the country would be helpful for the auto company to post higher sales in 2023. Incidentally, Kia India sold a total of 3.4 lakh units in the domestic and export markets in 2022. Currently, the South Korean auto major sells models like Seltos, Sonet, EV6 and Carens in the country. Previously, it sold Carnival MPV in India as well. However, the Carnival MPV has been discontinued later.

Kia India's national head of sales and marketing Hardeep Singh Brar has reportedly said to the news agency that the auto company is looking at around 10 per cent sales growth this year. He also reportedly said that the car brand has outpaced the overall passenger industry growth in the first half of 2023 and expects to do the same in the second half as well.

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The Kia official is hopeful that the overall industry volumes would stay in the vicinity of 40 lakh units in 2023. "For the first six months industry has grown at 10 per cent. We have grown at 12 per cent. So like every other year we have outpaced the industry," Brar said further adding that the second half is not going to be such a high growth period for the Indian auto industry. He further added that the high base of 2022 is going to be a restricting factor for the industry.

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In 2022, the Indian auto industry's sales volume was around 18 lakh units in the first six months, between January and June. This year, it was around 20 lakh units, revealed the Kia official. Elaborating further, he stated that in the second half, industry volume stood at about 19.5 lakh units. "So that means from 19.5 lakh units to 20 lakh units would be a very marginal growth. Similarly for us also the base is high but for example, if it is at 12 per cent in the first half, we would still like to grow at 8 to 10 per cent so that we can keep that pace of 4-5 per cent higher than the industry," Brar further said.

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A key reason behind the growth expectation is the improvement in the chip supply chain. Brar said that the supply of critical microchips has improved significantly compared to 2022. Besides this, the launch of the facelifted version of Kia India's most successful car Seltos too is likely to boost its overall sales in 2023.