Hyundai aims for 100K

Hyundai has set a hugely ambitious target to more than double Australian sales by 2010.

Speaking at the launch of the new Accent small car and Santa Fe SUV this week, new Hyundai Australia CEO, Steve Yeo, said the company's aim is to be either number four or five in the Australian market after the local manufacturers. The top importer spot is the company's aim.

In year-to-date sales to the end of April, Hyundai has sold 16,073 cars putting it in sixth position. The company expects to finish the year at around 56,000 vehicle sales. Last year, Hyundai finished in seventh position behind the four local makers, Mazda and Nissan with total sales of 48,010.

Although this is evidence of significant growth since the company's low of 2003, when it sold just 30,921, only 104 units ahead of Honda, it is a far cry from the glory days of the mid 1990s.

In 1997, Hyundai was riding a wave on the back of its Excel that offered cheap motoring for the masses. With sales that year of 38,489, Excel was the third biggest selling car in the market after Falcon and Commodore helping Hyundai to the position of top importer at number five with total sales of 59,798.

But the Australian market has changed significantly since then and although the boom in small cars is helping to drive Hyundai's fortune's north, doubling sales in the next four years is still a momentous task.

And according to Yeo, this 100K unit target is to be achieved with little in the way of additional model lines, except perhaps a small range of light commercial vehicles.

There will be, of course, replacement models for the existing lineup -- an all-new Elantra and facelifted Tiburon (pictured) arrive later this year. Hyundai will also look to sporty variants set to be developed off the back of the return to WRC entry in 2008 (see Accent WRC-style SR concept also pictured). However, Yeo says the product line is pretty well sorted for the next four years.

He says the big challenges that need to be addressed in order to help the company achieve its target are brand awareness and dealer development.

Brand awareness and image he says are particularly important, as there is still quite a hangover of the ‘cheap car company' perception that helped Hyundai sell Excels by the truckload in the 1990s.

This he says is no longer how the company wants to be perceived and it has to be "careful about price positioning and advertising".

There is no doubt that the bulk of Hyundai's products have come a long way since the Excel in terms of quality and refinement. Hyundai is preparing to bank on this rather than price to sell cars pushing a line of "affordable technology".  Evidence the new Accent launched last week with the three-door automatic hatch hitting the market at $17,990 pitching it right up against the highly regarded Ford Fiesta and Toyota Yaris and five-door hatch versions of the Mazda2 and Suzuki Swift.

Yeo says part of the rebranding and brand awareness will come from Hyundai's major sponsorship of the World Cup  while a campaign to encourage its largely multi-franchise dealers to put more effort into the Hyundai brand will also help.

Hyundai also aims to increase its dealers from the current number of 140 nationally by about 15 by 2010 to improve its presence in the marketplace.

A solid base of new product and broader coverage will no doubt help but in a market that many expect to remain fairly static over the next few years, doubling volume remains a very big task.