The country's second-largest passenger car manufacturer, Hyundai Motor India, has shifted production of 40,000 units of its i20 model for the current year to Turkey.
This will help the company cater to markets in the European Union, while availing of the tax incentives there.
Leftover capacity will be utilised to meet the growing demand for cars in this country. This many units (40,000) of the i20 were already being exported, on average, to the EU, of the total yearly output of about 100,000 of these cars.
Hyundai currently has total production capacity of 600,000 units a year of all vehicles across its two factories in Chennai and this can be stretched up to 50,000 units more.
The production in 2009 was 560,000 units and with an estimated growth of 15 per cent, this will go up to 644,000 units in 2010, if demand continues to be robust in overseas markets as well.
According to H W Park, managing director and CEO, this buoyancy in demand will come from the soon-to-be-launched Santa Fe in the country and the new Verna Transform, which was unveiled today, along with already high demand for the Santro, i10 and i20.
"As we gear up to launch our much awaited SUV (sport utility vehicle), Santa Fe, before the end of this year, the new Verna launched today will help us to maintain our market share in the country, as we hope to sell over 2,000 units of the new Verna each month," said Park.
