"Hyundai Motor leaps over the Great Wall and Mount Fuji"

In China, Hyundai and its sibling, Kia, is planning to wipe out the sluggish sales trend by launching EVs, such as Ioniq 5, EV6 and the luxury badge ‘Genesis’. Meanwhile, Hyundai is re-entering the Japanese market after 12 years from de-facto pullout, given that Japanese market has great potential in the EV market. Consequently, Hyundai will place its EV models at the fore, in the back-to-Japan marketing strategy.

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Hyundai's affiliate, Kia’s sales last year in China also collapsed to a fifth in 5 years from the year of 2016(650,000 units), to 127,000 units. Some view the decline in the Chinese market is due to the retaliation from Chinese government over the deployment of the THAAD (US Army’s missile , deployed in Korea) in 2016, but there exists total different viewpoints that point to Hyundai. 

“In the meantime, the perception that there is no reason to buy Hyundai cars, which are 20-30% more expensive than the Chinese brand cars began to spread. Moreover, the quality of the Chinese indigenous cars have improved" he added.

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This year, Hyundai and Kia aims to sell 370,000 units and 185,000 units respectively in China. The strategy that Hyundai and its sibling have is 'focus on choices strategy.' Thus, these two are expected to focus on selling ‘carnivals’ and ‘Sportage’ a semi-medium SUV, rather than launching several models. For the luxury lineups, Genesis will take off. Hyundai is looking at enhancing its brand image by opening Genesis showrooms in major cities. The G90, GV70 electric vehicle, and GV60 will be introduced to the market. Kim Yong-jin, professor at Sogang University, said "Luxury cars are a high-royalty market, thus the entry barrier will be relatively high. Thus, it will be important to have higher value than other premium brands by creating the image, associated with quality and performance.” The Korean giant plans to release six types of exclusive electric vehicles until 2027, which includes the EV6, and is also known to do reviewing market strategies to regain the lost ground in sales.According to the Korea Automotive Technology Institute, last year’s global sales of new electric vehicles totaled 4,717,728 units, while 57.4% (2,710,000 million units) were sold in China. As this figure shows, it is difficult to expand EV sales without capturing the Chinese market. Researcher Lee Hang-koo said, "The electric vehicle market in China is polarized into high-end brands such as Tesla and low-priced brands such as Hongguang. Hyundai will be able to compete in the mid-to-low price market.”Kia, in order to have impetus in EV, reorganized the management structure of Dongfeng Yueda Kia Motor Co, a joint venture established back in 2002 when Kia first jumped into China. Three companies hold the venture, with Kia and Dongfeng each having 50% and 25%, respectively. Yancheng City-owned Jiangsu Yueda Group also hold a quarter of the shares. Jiangsu took over the shares from Dongfeng Motors, thus increasing its share to 50%, each.

Looming Big clash between Nexo and the Japanese car, 'Mirai'

Hyundai returns to the Japanese auto market for the first time in 12 years. Hyundai Motor, which entered Japan in 2001, de-facto withdrew from the sedan market in 2009. That was due to poor performance in sales, with accumulated sales only topping 15,000 units. In Looking back in 2021 sales data, imported cars accounted for only 5.4% of the Japanese auto market.However, eco-friendly cars are the reason for Hyundai's bid. Japan will ban the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines from 2035. But, so far, the Japanese automakers have focused on hybrid and hydrogen cars, so the development of passenger electric cars are known to lag behind. Electric vehicles account for less than 1% of the Japanese passenger car market. As a first step, Hyundai Motor is planning to knock on the door of the Japanese EV market with its first EV, the Ioniq 5. For Ioniq 5, the price is 4.79 million yen (about 50 million won). The hydrogen car Nexo is also the key for breakthrough in the Japanese market. Hyundai's hydrogen car technology is known to be the best in the world. According to SNE Research, a research company, Nexo in the global hydrogen car sales during last year was ranked first, with 53.5%(9,300 units). The Nexo is sure to compete with Toyota’s Mirai in the Japanese market. Last year, Mirai's global sales were 5,900 units, just falling behind Nexo. It is certain that the Nexo will be able to differentiate itself from the Mirai sedan in that it is a mid-size SUV. The price of the Nexo in Japan is 7,768,300 yen (about 80 million won), which is similar to the price of the average version of the Mirai (7.1 million to 8.6 million yen). Nexo offers driving range of 820km , while the Mirai is about 750~850km, on a single charge.Hyundai is also trying to change the way it sells its cars. Hyundai, in order to make up for weak network to sell passenger cars in Japan, is planning to streamline through an online system that handles everything from vehicle selection·test drive reservations·ordering·payment, and even delivery.