India-Made Kia Seltos Sells 6,200 Units in August, 91 Units Higher than Korean Counterpart

Kia Seltos sold 6,200 units in India in August, higher than 6,109 units which it sold in Korea. The sales figures of made-in-India Seltos has outsold the made-in-Korea Seltos and has a difference of 91 units. Officially launched in India on August 22, the Seltos is produced at two of Kia's production facilities - in Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh and in Gwangju, Korea.

Kia Motors India, which got 6,046 bookings on a single day when online booking commenced on July 17, currently has over 35,000 bookings in hand and is aggressively driving production at its Anantapur plant to meet the surging demand for its first made-in-India product.

Kia Motors Corporation has announced global sales of 228,871 units for August 2019, 2.1 per cent more than what it sold during the same period last year. The best-selling model of the Korean carmaker was the Sportage SUV, followed by Rio (Pride) and the K3 (Forte) subcompact sedans. Kia Motors' sales outside Korea totalled 185,509 units, a 3 per cent year-on-year increase in part due to the introduction of the Seltos SUV in India in August. Kia officially began production of the Seltos on August 8 with 23,311 bookings in hand.

The price of the BS-VI-ready Seltos is giving it a lead in the competitive Indian SUV market. The Korean carmaker's pricing strategy for all of 16 variants covers virtually every price point and starts from Rs 969,000 (for the entry-level petrol Smartstream G1.5 HTE model) and goes up to Rs 15.99 lakh (for the diesel 1.5 CRDi HTX plus (6AT) and Petrol Smartstream 1.4 T – Gdi GTX (7DCT) and GTX plus top-end variant). With this, it takes on rivals including the Hyundai Creta, MG Hector, Nissan Kicks, Mahindra XUV500 and the Renault Captur in India.

In the coming months, Kia Motors is expected to add two new top-spec variants of the Seltos for the Indian market. Sales of cars manufactured by Kia are forecast to gain further in the second half of 2019 with a more extensive line-up of SUVs, including Seltos, Telluride, and the Mohave Product Enhancement slated to go on sale later in September.