Hyundai Motor aims to expand sales in China

By Kim Hyun-bin

Hyundai Motor Group is seeking to enhance its performance and market share by expanding sales of SUVs in the sluggish Chinese market in hopes of making a turnaround in the world's largest vehicle market.

“We plan to maintain and continue our performance from last year while focusing on enhancing other commercial markets such as China, which showed poor performance,” Hyundai Motor Group CEO Ha Eon-tae said during a shareholders meeting at the company's headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday. “We aim to recover our company status in the Chinese market through quality enhancements including new vehicle launches, reducing incentives, and maintaining optimum inventory levels, while working towards improving our brand image.”

In the commercial business sector, Ha emphasized the need to improve profitability and strengthen the company's electric vehicle (EV) sector to increase competitiveness in its future businesses.

He also introduced other means to enhance efficiency and increase premium level vehicle sales by setting key objectives for the company this year, which includes reducing fixed costs to increase profitability, transition into a more client-focused business, boost quality and future business competitiveness.

“Through our new releases such as Tucson, Palisade and Creta, we aim to increase sales 50 percent in the global SUV market,” Ha said. “We will utilize Genesis' full line up for a soft landing in the U.S. market and strengthen our position in other new markets.”

Hyundai has reorganized its Chinese operations due to weak sales since 2019, leading to suspending the Beijing plant and halting production of low-end compact models to enhance profitability.

The company reaffirmed its commitment to the electric vehicle market pushing forward its newly-released IONIQ 5, its first all-electric model based on a proprietary EV-only platform. It will be introduced in the European market later this month, while it is scheduled to hit the United States and other markets later this year.

The IONIQ 5 received positive responses at home and abroad, with its first-day preorders exceeding 23,000 units in the domestic market and 3,000 units in the European market last month.

As part of the company's carbon neutral initiatives, the automaker plans to expand its hydrogen businesses and establish an ESG management platform that best suits the company's management style and utilizes the platform to boost client value.

Mobis to focus on software, platform

The group's component affiliate ― Hyundai Mobis ― has vowed to become a software and platform based company and further expand ESG management throughout its corporation, the company said.

“We will transition our business model focusing on software and platform to secure a differentiated competitive edge,” Hyundai Mobis' newly-appointed CEO, Cho Sung-hwan, said during the company's shareholders meeting, Wednesday. “In addition, we will strengthen our ESG management for continuous growth.”

During the meeting, the company announced its foray into several new business sectors including aviation mobility and robotics components and manufacturing.

Hyundai Motor Group Honorary Chairman Chung Mong-koo has stepped down from his executive director position on the board of Hyundai Mobis, which was formalized at a shareholders meeting, the company said, Wednesday.

The honorary chairman's term as director was originally set to expire in March of next year, but the decision to leave early comes as his only son Euisun took over the helm of the conglomerate in October.

Chung actively invested in overseas companies with advanced technologies in autonomous and other next-generation vehicles, establishing a strong foundation for growth for the country's leading carmaker.