To say Kia has had entered the Indian market back in 2019 with a bang is an understatement for sure. What amazed me the most was the fact that it read the market so amazingly well that it quite literally caught the pulse of the Indian audience which rather sad to say couldn’t be read by some global conglomerate giants like GM,Ford,Honda etcetra and even after pouring billions of dollars these OEMs simply failed to understand the Indian market,its audience and their preference which Kia easily did and in no small amount due to availability of large statistical data from its parent organisation, Hyundai which by the way has its own weird story which is a must to know IMO before understanding about Kia’s story, I shall leave the link of that article which I had penned down a couple of years ago as a Hyundai loyalist with 3Hyundais I personally own. https://volklub.com/the-peculiar-case-of-hyundai/
So, before understanding about Kia let’s also go back in time and have a look at the Indian automotive scenario 5years back,just before Kia’s entry to India.
Understanding the Indian automotive scenario circa 2019
This was a year just before BS6 emission norms would kick in and unknown to all of us a global pandemic would take the whole world to a grinding halt.
More specifically if we look at the CSUV segment, Hyundai remains the leader with their Creta which had just recieved a mid life makeover which gave it even more goodies making it the de facto choice of the urban customers especially when you factor in the large number of variants on offer with multiple powertrain options including a Diesel Automatic combo which gave the perfect mix of power, efficiency and refinement.
The Market Leader
Other options included MSILs S-Cross an excellent car IMHO(one of the best ever Marutis to be ever sold along with Kizashi,OG Grand Vitara and SX4) had failed to take off even after being positioned as a premium product selling exclusively through Nexa outlets mostly because of its crossover design, lack of an automatic option with the diesel and no petrol engine whatsoever, also MSIL discontinued the 1.6DDiS which made it a rocket with the facelift thus making it no more appealing to dieselheads(like me????),then there was a snob value or lack thereof with a car costing 10+L with a S logo on its nose.
Special note about my favourite automotive OEM.(Please read it a bit more attentively)
Now if we’re talking about Japanese and snob how come can we forget about a brand which gave us one of the best petrol engines ever at an affordable price with a magical tech called as intelligent variable valve timing and lift electronic control, in short the i-VTEC system, yes we’re talking about perhaps every millenials favourite, Honda!
**Bonus Note– Still till this date I’ve seen people not knowing the difference between i-VTEC and VTEC. The former is essentially the same however it combines VTEC with VTC or variable timing control which uses a continuously varying camshaft phasing system which is used on the intake system of the engines to optimise the best air-fuel ratio to get the best balance of power and efficiency depending on the rpm.
Honda, sadly in general was (and still is to an extent) quite confused with its planning, development and execution of their India lineup especially after Honda Siel Cars India(HSCI) became Honda Cars India Limited(HCIL) circa 2012, post which they axed the beautiful 8th gen Civic with no new gen planned in near future, launched the 4th gen City trying to plug the void left by both 3rd gen City and 8th gen Civic but somehow QC issues plagued this gen of City with rattling cabins to falling parts, all of this from a brand which was known as one of the pinnacle of QC,a suite of cheap,built to a cost products followed which were anything but a Honda, I won’t delve into details since I’ve already penned down an article about Honda in India on this forum which co-incidentally was my first ever post on this website, do have a read.https://volklub.com/why-honda-india-lost-its-plot/
Coming back Honda India was selling the BRV which was just a redesigned Mobilio in&out, it was quite a nice product overall IMHO which had the USP of 7seater in a relatively compact form factor but somehow Indians didn’t like its somewhat van like long length,short width stance, also lack of goodies and diesel automatic option hit the company and the BRV hard though I must add most of the customers who bought the BRV are quite satisfied in their own right.
The one who started it all
Renault which actually created the segment with their excellent Duster which by the way was the ICOTY 2013 had somewhere lost their plot and launched the Captur crossover instead of properly updating the Duster or addressing some of its ergonomic and engineering flaws, ironically the Captur failed to capture(pun intended) the Indian buyers fancy while the Duster was left to rot,honestly speaking if Renault managed to properly update the Duster,addressed its flaws,gave option of smooth AT/CVT instead of AMT, things would’ve had been a lot better for the French OEM today.
It was more or less a similar story with Capturs’ cousin brother from Japan, the Kicks which sad to say despite being a a very decent CSUV was literally ‘kicked’ out of the market despite offering some segment 1st goodies viz 360° camera, maybe it was Nissan’s bleak presence in India which played the spoil sport for the Kicks.
The American giant
Ford never bothered to plug the gap between EcoSport and Endeavour with a capable CSUV despite having competent products in its portfolio elsewhere, or did they, if we believe in the rumour that Ford had a significant amount of contribution in development of Mahindra’s excellent XUV700(which sounds eerily true considering how well the XUV drives,I was simply blown away with the product overall when I drove it a couple of months ago,if you don’t have any experience of driving an XUV yet I would strongly suggest you taking a TD of the same or more easily reading my review of the same :-)), https://volklub.com/mahindra-xuv700-ax7l-awd-review/ what went wrong and why we couldn’t get the Ford’s version of XUV,sadly we could never know or is there any ray of hope, considering Ford’s India return soon could the masked SUV get unveiled and we finally get to see Ford’s version of the XUV, fingers crossed!
Ze Germans.
The less said about VAG,the better, they knew where the market was shifting i.e
towards SUVs, they had huge R&D budget but still couldn’t bring anything to the table apart from special editions of Polo&Vento and concentrated towards premium segment with excellent vehicles like Tiguan, Passat, Octavia, Kodiaq etc, maybe they were waiting for BS6 norms to kick in but the fact remains they were late to the party and were pretty much unarmed against the ruthless Indian automotive industry.
Entry of Kia with its unique PR stratergy
So,you get the gist from this long story, apart from Hyundai somehow none of the other OEMs figured out the Indian buyers fancy and it almost seemed like Hyundai was so bored with its monopoly that it decided to create a competition by bringing in its own sister concern Kia Motors.
Kia as a brand was a rather small entity in the South Korea and was on the verge of bankruptcy way back in the 90s narrowly preventing a hostile takeover by Samsung(if you didn’t know Samsung even made cars back in the day, if you don’t believe me just google it) before being absorbed by Hyundai,the largest automaker of South Korea who has had just established itself as a proper entity after being a butt of all jokes especially in the States.
Kia was eyeing the Indian market perhaps for an year or so as you may remember they used some innovative ad campaigns especially during the 2019 ODI World Cup Tournament with their Stinger GT and Peter Schreyer(ex designer of Audi and he had also designed a single car for Hyundai,that was the 3rd gen Tucson,the one that’s owned by me :-D). So they definitely had their homework done properly before entering India.
Their first product the Seltos,launched right at the buzzing CSUV segment and what a product overall it was, to begin with the design was superb, yes the front with the LED headlights and ice cube LED foglamps might look a bit too much but during night you won’t miss it for anything else, the size was perfect neither too small nor too humongous, perfect for town as well as highway running.
The interior was amazing, Kia had absolutely nailed it,the continous large high resolution screens with soft touch materials along with a perfectly sized chunky tactile steering wheel made it a stand apart from the rest.
Features and tech man, Kia knew Indians like a lot of goodies in their cars(one of the prime reason why Hyundai is favourite of many buyers),they stuffed in so many of them including many unheard of in this segment viz Bose Hi-Fi surround sound, Connected Car Tech with remote start, Air Purifier,Heads Up Display, truly stealing the show from even Hyundai!
Engine options was extenive including a Turbo Petrol, Diesel and NA Petrol and these all were BS6 ready, even with BS4 fuels, mind you. Transmission options were aplenty too with Manual and Automatic also Kia decided to equip the different engines with different kind of automatics including a segment first Dual Clutch Auto, reliable TC and a smooth CVT or IVT.
If all of these weren’t enough, Kia carpet bombed the competition with multiple variants of the Seltos extending to more than 25 variants!! So there was at least some kind of a variant for all kind of budget.
So you see,this kind of variety,features and technology was really inexistent at this segment and also Kia was very clever with their pricing too commanding a reasonable premium for the top end models slightly highlighting their premium brand positioning strategy spot on.
No doubt the order books were blazing in no time at all, a crowd of hungry businessmen lined up to get a franchisee of a Showroom&Workshops, thus quickly setting up a wide dealer network lighting quick!
Even their service centres are positioned in such an upmarket fashion giving you a very premium feel overall, truly commendable and should be seriously learnt by some OEMs.
Entering more expensive segment.
Their next product was the even more premium Carnival MPV, and as of date the Carnival is discontinued but soon the new generation models would arrive still it deserves a special mention. As we all know Innova is a MPV pretty much unbeatable for nearly 20years now,even people owning expensive SClass&7series own an Innova for long road trips, anything more premium than an Innova, required you to lighten your wallet by over a crore with MPVs like Merc V Class,Toyota Vellfire(Alphard) or its even more premium version the Lexus LM, Kia understood this large gap and introduced the Carnival at a slight premium over the Innova all the while promising to offer a much more upmarket experience with luxury chairs,automatic doors, dual sunroof, refined and powerful 2.2L R CRDi diesel(the same mill which powered the erstwhile Santa Fe) engine mated with smooth 8speed TC. The Carnival managed to create its own separate niche at no time at all finding happy owners who even got behind the wheel of what basically was a van! Many think that Carnival was discontinued due to low sales but it ain’t true, the real reason was it was globally obsolete and discontinued with new generation model, hopefully Kia would get it soon to India considering its been spotted undisguised on our streets.
Now Kia was clever with their stratergy in India, they decided to directly jump into SUV bandwagon since hatches and sedans were pretty much stagnant or declining in India, so to keep the momentum strong their next product was the Sonet which launched smack during the festive season of 2020 and the market had just somewhat opened up after months of lockdown with pent up demand and what a smashing hit it was, just like its elder brother, Kia very cleverly scaled down every aspect of the Seltos and made the Sonet, same bold looks, premium interiors,multiple engine options including the Diesel AT(unique in segment) that too in the same state of tune as in the Seltos!,all wrapped up with a great pricing too,no wonder the sales chart were on fire!
At this point I must add one Achilles’ heel(may not be for Kia in terms of sales figure but definitely in their brand perception) which left a sour taste in the mouths of many was the poor crash safety ratings of their cars which only managed a paltry 3star with an unstable bodyshell and what hurt more was the Seltos sold elsewhere like in Australia scored a perfect 5stars which just showed that they deliberately cut costs there knewing safety or lack thereof wasn’t really a concern of Indian buyers considering MSIL&Hyundai both mostly having average to poor built cars were&are a running success, though of late this has been changing slowly but steadily thanks in no small measure by our homegrown automakers Tata Motors and Mahindra which deserve a separate discussion some other day. Kia though tried to fix their dented image by standardising 6Airbags,still a proper crash test is a must before commenting anything else though I’m on the optimistic side given the new Verna scored a surprising 5stars at Global NCAP.
Kia understood that Indians like to travel with their whole family though they aren’t capable to buy expensive Innova they were happy with Ertiga and even the Triber! Therefore they decided to pitch a new MPV for to cater them by launching the Carens, while I personally didn’t like the design especially considering how handsome were the Sonet&Seltos, Kia ensured the same wide engine+transmission options including a Turbo Petrol with a DCT!, premium interiors brimming with tech at a great pricing, no wonder this product also was a runaway success for Kia India!
They then debuted in the EV space with the EV6 directly competing with the premium marquee like BMW which had the ix4 priced around the same ballpark, Kia offered both RWD&AWD option,along with futuristic looks,ballistic performance, ultra fast charging and a whole lot of goodies wrapped in a premium interior. It was so nice that it even managed to entice our beloved world cup winning captain Sir M.S Dhoni too!
Among all this while Kia listened to customer feedback and incorporated small changes in all of their vehicles to improve the user experience even further,some of these include smoothening of DCT box, introduction of iMT or clutchless manual gearbox, introducing matt colour option with X Line trim etc.
Now fast forward to previous year Kia realised even though everything was going good, competition has heated up with OEMs like VW,Honda,MSIL entering the segment and facing some stiff competition from its own sibling the 2nd gen Creta which has been literally selling like hot cakes even with its poor safety ratings,polarising looks and expensive price tag its a good time to freshen things up a little bit to keep the momentum strong and comes the Seltos facelift or in their speak the Badass 2.0.
Seltos FL retains that handsome silhouette of the original version with small touches to give that modern touch, the grille gets a little wider and taller but at no point ungainly,the taillights get connected, interiors are revised with sleeker screens and even more goodies headlining quite literally with Panoramic Sunroof, ADAS level 2 being some of the highlights while still retaining the extensive variants,trims,engine+gearbox combos at a relatively great pricing.
The Seltos FL is followed by Sonet FL during early 2024 which follows the same strategy of its elder brother, what’s especially unique with both these siblings are different seat upholstery material and colours,alloy wheel design and exterior trim options, this kind of customisation is mostly reserved for cars costing north of 50L, a commendable job by Kia to do this at this segment.
So you see, Kia remains always at their toe constantly listening to customer feedback and launching new models, facelifts etc to stay relevant and competitive, the cars themselves have that über premium appeal, the showrooms and workshop have that feel good factor all at a price which is quite affordable in today’s day and age which quite honestly makes Kia one of the more preferred choices and yes their cars may have questionable safety but the positives are so many that they easily outweigh the negatives and let me tell you very honestly, if I were personally to buy a car at this price point, I would give a good,hard look at Kia despite being completely aware of their shortcomings and that should answer how much of a great job Kia is doing, quite honestly their entry to competitive and brutal Indian automotive sector is so picture perfect it should be a case study at IIMs and a template for any brand debuting in India(Yes,I’m looking at you Citröen).
Thank you for reading this long albeit straight from my heart post.
Yours Sincerely
Aneerudh.