NEW DELHI — Hyundai Motor India expects to sell at least 250,000 midsize sport utility vehicles in 2027, driven by growing demand for SUVs and the anticipated contribution of its newly launched Bayon alongside the popular Creta, Managing Director and CEO Tarun Garg said Monday.
Garg said the company’s sales projection reflects the rapid expansion of India’s midsize SUV market and its confidence that the two models will appeal to different groups of buyers.
Deliveries of the Bayon are expected to begin during the current festival season, with Hyundai viewing its 2027 sales target as a minimum rather than an upper limit.
The company expects to sell approximately 170,000 Creta SUVs in 2026, according to Garg.
“The mid-SUV segment today is 16.5 per cent of the market already,” he said.
India’s midsize SUV segment has recorded a compound annual growth rate of 25.6% over the past five years. Industry projections indicate that sales volumes could increase another 64% between 2026 and 2032.
Hyundai is positioning the Bayon as a key part of its strategy to capitalize on that growth, building on the success of the Creta, which helped establish the midsize SUV category in India.
“Creta created a market (of mid-SUV segment) when it was launched 10 years ago. We expect that the launch of Bayon will allow us to do for the next 10 years what Creta did then,” Garg said.
The company anticipates that gasoline-powered vehicles will account for the largest portion of Bayon sales. Hyundai also plans to introduce a compressed natural gas version of the SUV in January 2027.
However, the automaker has ruled out offering a diesel variant, with Garg explaining that an excessive number of powertrain options could complicate the product lineup and make purchasing decisions more difficult for customers.
Beyond its engine options, the Bayon will feature an artificial intelligence-powered voice assistant using technology developed by Perplexity.
Addressing concerns about data privacy, Garg said information generated by customers through the voice assistant would remain with Hyundai and would not be shared with Perplexity, despite the company’s role in providing the underlying language model.
Hyundai’s sales ambitions come as India’s SUV market continues to expand, with automakers introducing new models and technology features to attract buyers in one of the country’s fastest-growing vehicle segments. (Source: IANS)
