Hyundai rolls out 5 Millionth car in India

As soon as it set up shop in India, Hyundai's aggressive growth path and the slew of top-selling models that it unleashed raised eyebrows. That was between 1998 and 2000, when the Santro, Accent and Sonata came and conquered the market one after the other. Thanks to the strong foundation built up by those models, the milestones just don't stop coming for this South Korean manufacturer that has made Chennai its home.

October 17, 2013 marked the production of the 5 millionth car at Hyundai's manufacturing facility at Irrungattukottai near Chennai. Incidentally, the car for this grand milestone was the recently-launched i10 Grand flanked on either sides by Mr. B. S. Seo, MD and CEO of Hyundai Motor India Limited and the Bollywood heartthrob Shahrukh Khan, who has been the brand ambassador for Hyundai cars ever since the late nineties.

While the growing number of Hyundai cars on Indian roads tell only a part of the story, Hyundai's press release focused on the other often-ignored part of this success story. So far, Hyundai has pumped in US $ 2.7 Billion as investments and has paid US $ 7.4 Billion as taxes to the Government. With an yearly turnover of US $ 5 Billion and more than 100,000 people employed directly and indirectly, Hyundai Motor India contributes a significant 4% to the GDP of Tamil Nadu.

Hyundai's journey in India over the years and the important milestones crossed are listed below:

* April 27, 2000 - 100,000th Car Roll-Out
* December 11, 2003 - 500,000th Car Roll-Out
* March 13, 2006 - 1 Millionth Car Roll-Out
* August 04, 2010 - 3 Millionth Car Roll-Out
* October 17, 2013 - 5 Millionth Car Roll-Out

An interesting part of this growth story is the significant chunk of exports from Hyundai's Indian facility. It was Hyundai that ambitiously explored the strategy of making India its small-car production hub. That move has paid off handsomely as it not only catapulted the Korean brand to the top of the list of exporters from India, but also the second largest domestic automotive brand in India. Going by the long list of automotive manufacturers that have since joined the fray in making India their export hub, Hyundai's strategy was indeed right. Of the 5 million cars that Hyundai has rolled out from its Chennai plant, 62% came from domestic sales while the remaining 38% are exports to more than 100 countries around the world.

With the Santro, Eon, i10, i20 and Grand i10 raking in substantial volumes in the small car segment and the Verna and Elantra comfortably outselling competitors in their respective segments, Hyundai's trajectory isn't going to taper off anytime now.