Hyundai gears up for Creta demand, holds back exports

Hyundai Motor India seems to have deferred its plan to export the Creta by a few months, following high demand for the new SUV in the domestic market. Creta has attracted bookings to the tune of 32,000 units and Hyundai is re-working its production and supply schedules to meet this demand.

Rakesh Srivastava, senior vice-president, sales and marketing at Hyundai Motor India said: “We are delighted. We are increasing production to reduce waiting period.” Hyundai Motor India plans to ramp up the production of Creta to 7,000 units a month, which is about 40 percent higher than its earlier plan of producing 5,000 units per month, as per ET Auto and these are highest production and wholesale numbers in a single month for a compact SUV, by any car manufacturer. The company has deferred the plans to export its vehicle from September to November-December.

In fact, even the launch was pre-poned by a couple of months to July, in order to meet the demand.

Creta has become the best selling compact SUV within its first month of launch, clocking over 6700 units. These numbers are higher that what Renault Duster and Ford EcoSport posted in their first month.

While the diesel option forms the major part of the bookings in the Creta portfolio, the petrol versions are also getting a reasonable demand of around 20 percent of the total. Creta is the first to introduce a diesel automatic in its segment and this variant too has received bookings in excess of 20 percent.