"Hyundai will always be more high-end than Chinese cars", this is what Hyundai Australia CEO John Kett said in a recent interview.
He said: The era of Hyundai's "cheap" car is gone, and Hyundai used to fight with Japanese brands in order to gain the market, but the lower price cannot bring enough profits to support the research and development of new models.
Now, instead of going the low-price route, Hyundai is using more profits to drive technological advancements as part of Hyundai's sustainable business model.
John Kett said: "Our Hyundai will always be more high-end than Chinese cars, we have to come up with technology to stay ahead of the curve, and our premium is worth it for customers."
It can be said that in the eyes of Hyundai Motor Group's executives, their brand will always be more high-end and superior than that of Chinese car brands.
In fact, Hyundai has two worlds in the global market and the Chinese market. Hyundai Group's total global sales volume in 2022 was 684820,000 units, ranking third in the world after Toyota and Volkswagen.
In 2022, Hyundai and Kia sold only 350,000 units in the Chinese market, accounting for only 15% share.
In the first half of this year, Beijing Hyundai's overall sales were only 123259 units. Due to sluggish sales and vacant plant capacity, Beijing Hyundai has been forced to frequently sell factories in recent years.
The sales of Korean cars in the Chinese market began to decline in 2017, mainly because Koreans did not pay attention to the Chinese market, delayed the introduction of new models, and continued to sell old models, and even appeared "three generations in the same house".
Although the Chinese market is extremely important, the focus of Hyundai is clearly not placed here.
The Korean brand is also a typical "double-standard enterprise", the same Korean car uses new technology in the North American market, but uses old technology in China.
Hyundai's long-term "price for volume" and its slow pace in the transition to new energy have led to Korean cars increasingly unable to keep up with the pace of the market.
At present, Beijing Hyundai's focus is still on fuel vehicles, and it has not been able to keep up with the pace of the Chinese market in the electrification transformation, and the new energy models on sale are also "oil-to-electricity", which is obviously not competitive.
Hyundai's brand image in the Chinese market also has certain problems. Some quality problems and consumer complaints have affected the brand image of Hyundai to a certain extent.
The quality of Beijing Hyundai's products is also worrying, with Festa bending the A-pillar in the crash test of the China Insurance Research Institute, and Sonata also bending the A-pillar in the crash test of the China Automotive Research Institute.
In addition, Beijing Hyundai has also been exposed to problems such as "black screen door" and "engine throttle", which seems to put the subtext of "domestic is simple" on the bright side.
With the rapid rise of Chinese car brands, they have also surpassed Korean cars in terms of cost performance. Chinese brands have achieved a counterattack on Korean cars in terms of design and configuration.
A few more words
Hyundai's downturn is more like a foregone conclusion, and the domestic environment to "Hallyu" is one of the reasons for Hyundai's continuous decline, in addition, the continuous rise of Chinese brands has also eaten away at Hyundai's market share.
Nowadays, in the Chinese auto market, Korean cars are indeed getting worse and worse, especially with the intensification of competition in the auto market and the continuous rise of domestic cars, the cost-effective selling point of Korean cars is basically not an advantage.