[gururajrv]

Look how Kia & Hyundai are shooting new cars out in the last few months - they’ve just been extremely active during the slow which pretty much shows they’re POSITIVE in their approach - be with Covid situation slowdown / BS6 introduction.

I can’t really recall players like Hyundai, Kia, Tata, Mahindra pointing towards these situations as a setback at all. But MSIL have been so pessimistic when the BS6 talks came out and their first move was to eliminate Diesel engines altogether and kept saying Diesels won’t do good for the customers in pricing.

It’s evident, they’ll lose out very soon. Their era is over before they know it as the competition has caught up big time.

We are looking at Hyundai-Kia-Tata-Mahindra who will rule this decade. Time’s changed my friend and for good

[TrackDay]

All That is left for Kia is now to launch a killer premium hatchback with killer features and Insane pricing. That can swing the whole game in favor of Kia-Hyundai.

[Nilesh5417]

I voted NO. Maybe down a decade, I might change my vote.

I feel in a country like India, value and / or affordability still matters to majority of the population. Our country is largely still rural or at best semi urban and car remains an aspirational thing. Maruti knows this well and will remain dominant in the volume game. Just look at how many cars Maruti still continues to have in top 10 by sales. If they can now rise up to the Korean challenge of providing to the increasingly urban, educated and young working class, I think they can stay in the game.

But the Koreans are playing hard and as and when they come close to the kind of portfolio that Maruti has, which to me is a half a decade away, they are either going to make Maruti reinvent itself or stay in the low margin volume game forever.

[IP_Man]

My vote is 'NO'.

Though, Maruti missed the bus of development of proper BS6 diesel engine, they have strong goodwill in the market especially in the semi urban cities of India. Hence Maruti is unbeatable in small petrol car market segment.

[KunalMadaan]

I believe that soon Maruti will be the Nokia in the automotive industry if they did not evolve in time.

[frewper]

Yes. We get something better for almost the same price, why would one not buy a better car once you have had a Maruti. Every time I get into my can and when it starts rattling, I tell my self, damn it not buying a Maruti again.

Maruti could have worked on the quality issues long time ago and would have made it better if the sales would have dropped if people saw it as a problem.

But given that our country is unique and there are so many first time buyers, Maruti will always sell. But once the buyer owns a car and knows the difference, second time buyers will be hard.

One thing what I am seeing with Kia-Hyundai, in terms of quality is that KIA somehow feels premium to the Hyundai at a slightly higher price. My question, are they trying to create competition among themselves ? With Hyundai being the more affordable car.

The first time I felt this was when I recently casually walked into the Hyundai showroom and saw the Verna, with no wheel well cladding and other things somehow the Verna was not appealing to me, though I always loved the previous generations. Then checked and test drove the Venue, dont agree with the design theme at all. Then walked into Kia showroom right next door, and the Sonet seems a 100 times better than the Venue. Same for the Creta, with the price difference at that price range, I would not hesitate to buy the Seltos over Creata.

Kia-Hyundai is here for one thing only, to dominate the Indian market and make Maruti number 2. I am just waiting for a Hatchback and Sedan to show up in the Kia stable, Marutis Swift and higher category is toast after that.

[Mustang Sammy]

Korean companies are known to be very aggressive in capturing customer feedback and gaining market share. Just see how far Samsung has come in these past 15 years.
Hyundai was notorious for bad quality in the 90s and early 2000s. They came back with a bang, offering 10 year/100k mile warranties on their engines and transmissions, and now have offerings covering the entire spectrum.
That being said, the reluctance of foreign manufacturers to offer the latest features on their India offerings is probably a perception that people don’t care about driveability and build quality as much as bling and fancy electronics.
Truth be told, outside this forum there is some merit to that argument. How many buyers of the Seltos would pay extra for AWD?
Safety on the other hand is a case of not respecting the customer. If Tata and Mahindra can make products with 5 star ratings, no reason Suzuki and Hyundai/Kia cannot follow suit.

[jbpanda]

I voted NO.

Atleast in the near future of about a decade, no way. The extent of market penetration Maruti has managed over the years is hard to beat for any manufacturer. Indian players like Tata and Mahindra have not been able to overcome that all these years notwithstanding their presence in the rural market. While it can be argued that the Indian players have other shortcomings and the Korean duo are slowly but steadily increasing their market share. However, to change the conservative mindset of a typical Indian customer when it comes to "reliability" (of the vehicle and resale value of most Maruti cars) and "accessibility" (after sales service and ease of availability of parts at comparatively reasonable price of a Maruti), it will not be that easy to change the perception of the people at large, particularly in the Tier-II and Tier-III cities.