Hyundai Motor announces return to Japanese market

IONIQ 5, left, and Nexo displayed at Hyundai Motor media conference held at Otemachi Mitsui Hall in Tokyo, Japan, Tuesday / Courtesy of Hyundai Motor Group

By Kim Hyun-bin

Hyundai Motor Company announced it will return to the Japanese auto market at a press conference held in Tokyo Japan, Tuesday. The reentry comes 12 years after Hyundai withdrew from the Japanese passenger auto market at the end of 2009.

"(After the withdrawal from the passenger car market), Hyundai Motor has been contemplating (re-entry) in various forms for the past 12 years," Hyundai Motor CEO Jang Jae-hoon said in a video greeting. “But now, we have decided to go back to square one and service our (Japanese) customers.”

Despite the reentry, only online sales will be available. Japanese customers will be able to make payments for cars, insurance, and registration, as well as vehicle option selection and ordering online, providing an offline-like brand experience, purchase support, maintenance, and education, Hyundai Motor said.

Hyundai Motors also changed the corporate name of its Japanese subsidiary from Hyundai Motors Japan to Hyundai Mobility Japan. To better reflect Hyundai Motor's goal of becoming a 'smart mobility solution provider' in Japan.

Hyundai Motor Group has been seeking to expand its presence in the Japanese and Chinese automobile markets with its latest lineup of electric vehicles (EV).

Hyundai Motor Company aims to appeal to the Japanese market with its IONIQ 5 and hydrogen EV 'Nexo', at the same time as Kia Corp. is pushing its EV6 to customers in China, in addition to launching new EV models each year.

In the Japanese automobile market, imported cars account for only 8 percent, due to strong preference for local brands such as Toyota and Honda. Most imported vehicles are German brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi.

Hyundai Motor entered the Japanese market in 2001, but suffered poor performance until 2009, with cumulative sales of only 15,000 units, and eventually withdrawing from the market.

However, as the trend toward electric vehicles has been accelerating recently, Hyundai Motor Group seems to have decided to reenter the Japanese market with its EV lineup as its main competitive force.

In addition, Kia Corp., whose sales volume in China has halved in the past year, is also aiming to recover sales through its EVs.

After the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), to the peninsula in 2017, Kia has been struggling with growing anti-Korean sentiment in China. Kia sold 650,000 units in 2016, but sales fell sharply to 220,000 units in 2020 and 120,000 units in 2021.