Kia Mulling New MPV for Indian Market Based on Seltos Platform; Report

• Published On: 28 June 2019
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Kia Mulling Over New MPV for Indian Market; Report

South Korean carmaker Kia finally unveiled their Seltos SUV for the Indian market and the launch of the SUV will take place soon. Seltos will be the first vehicle from the carmaker in India and the company also has grand plans for the Indian market as it has stated time and again. The importance of India is Kia’s plans can be gauged from the fact that Seltos saw its global premiere in India. The South Korean maker had already emphasised the importance of Indian market at its presentation at the Auto Expo held last year. Now there are reports coming in that the brand is also preparing to bring out and MPV in the Indian market. A leading car magazine in its report has stated that the brand will soon begin work on the MPV and it will be based on the platform used in Seltos.

Talking to the magazine on the sidelines of the global unveil of Seltos in India, the CEO and President of Kia Motors, Han Woo Park stated,

“I’m thinking about how to build our brand image in India and also about our next model and one of the options is an MPV.”

The upcoming MPV, if it goes to production, will rival the likes of Maruti Ertiga and Mahindra Marazzo in the Indian market. What is to be noted here is that the platform used in Seltos will also find its usage on the upcoming next generation of Hyundai Creta. Now there have also been reports that Hyundai will bring out a 7-seater version of the Creta in Indian market. This tells us that the platform used in Seltos can indeed be used to build a 7-seater car. However, Kia may not go for a 7-seater SUV, rather it could take the MPV route in order to build on the brand image in India because Kia is afterall a new brand in the country.

As of now, Kia has no model in its line-up that can take on the Maruti Suzuki Ertiga, therefore there are chances that the brand can get down to developing an entire new MPV. This move will not only help the brand launch a vehicle in India but Kia could even take this MPV to other South Asian markets as Ertiga is also sold in multiple markets. Talking of the Indian market, the MPV segment in India has also shown a relatively healthy growth in the market as the sales of all three, Maruti Ertiga, Mahindra Marazzo, and Toyota Innova Crysta have been growing strong and now Renault will also mark an entry in the segment with their Triber. However, nothing is confirmed as of now and only time will tell whether Kia starts work on the MPV for India.