Hyundai targets faster car sales growth in India in 2015

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Hyundai Motor Co's India unit expects a 13 percent increase in sales in the country in 2015, helped by strong demand for compact cars and utility vehicles, a top company official said on Tuesday.

South Korea's largest automaker is forecasting sales of 465,000 cars in India this year, while maintaining exports at about 200,000 units, said Rakesh Srivastava, senior vice president, sales and marketing, Hyundai Motor India Limited.

This would mean Hyundai using about 95 percent of its production capability of 700,000 units a year in India. The company says it is yet to decide on any expansion, even as capacity constraints in other parts of the world are expected to limit global sales growth.

Hyundai India's sales grew 8 percent in 2014 making up about 5 percent of the automakers global sales. The higher growth in 2015 is likely to take India's contribution to about 6 percent.

Hyundai is India's second largest carmaker behind market leader Maruti Suzuki.

Hyundai and affiliate Kia Motors Corp have forecast global sales to grow by 2.5 percent this year to 8.2 million vehicles -- the smallest rise since 2003, hampered mainly by capacity constraints.

"Currently our focus is to increase our selling capacity so that whenever we bring in additional manufacturing we are able to continuously grow and have maximum utilisation," said Srivastava.

"Profitability comes in when you maximise your capacity utilisation and that is exactly what our endeavour would be."

The company's focus will be on launching new products, growing the number of dealerships and entering new markets like rural areas or the taxi segment, said Srivastava, speaking at the launch of Hyundai's passenger car, i20 Active.

The i20 Active, a sportier version of its top-selling premium hatchback, Elite i20, is targeted at younger drivers and will compete with similar vehicles from rivals Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen AG and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

(Reporting by Aditi Shah; Editing by Keith Weir)