By Nick Syn

KOMOCO MOTORS RECENTLY held a big launch party for the new Sonata at their Alexandra Road showroom. The old model did much to help establish Hyundai’s reputation for quality and reliability, earning a best in class nod in last year’s J.D. Power Quality Survey.

This reputation for quality has been affirmed by healthy local sales, the old Sonata managed to find homes with nearly 1,800 buyers in 2004, despite the model being discontinued in October.

The new car, therefore, has a fair amount to live up to. Hyundai was ranked second in terms of local sales last year, and it is its hope that the new Sonata will contribute significantly to the marque consolidating this position for 2005.

As a measure of how important the local market is to Hyundai, Singapore has the distinction of being the first country to receive right-hand drive models and we precede the US market launch by about a month.

However, Hyundai intends for the new model to play a much larger role than simply acting as filler for padding out the product range. The Sonata, in essence, heralds Hyundai’s intent to slug it out toe-to-toe with the major global players.

According to Mr Soon Nam Lee, General Manager of Asian Corporate Marketing Division, the Sonata marks a major shift in focus for Hyundai in terms of its global strategy, “Hyundai has spent a lot of time and money on engineering and research, establishing our reputation for quality and reliability, now we want to focus on promoting the brand.”

Hyundai has been steadily working away at improving the quality of its cars and with the Sonata, the company feels that it now has a product with a sufficiently premium-feel upon which it can hinge a major refocusing exercise on branding.

Targeted at the likes of the Toyota Camry, Hyundai hopes that the Sonata will emulate the Camry’s pivotal role in taking parent company Toyota truly global.

One of the most high-profile measures that Hyundai will be adopting in this respect is the continued sponsorship of the World Cup in 2006.

This US$500 million exercise should reap dividends similar to those Hyundai garnered at the last World Cup in terms of the large scale promoting of brand awareness.

The local launch also reflected the football emphasis with an appearance by players from the Tampines Rovers, a club with which Komoco Motors is closely affiliated.

The engineering lessons learnt from creating the Sonata’s more upmarket feel will translate to the rest of the Hyundai range. According to Mr C. H. Han, General Manager of Hyundai’s Asian Headquarters, this won’t affect the company’s reputation for building affordable cars.

“Even though we’re increasing the premium feel of our cars, we can defray the costs involved through volume. For the Sonata we’re targeting 230,000 in total sales for 2005. In addition, we share platforms with Kia so there are additional savings to be gained.”

In terms of volume, Hyundai has equally ambitious plans. Current production volume stands at 1.1 million units, ranking the company seventh globally, Hyundai intends to join the ranks of the five largest carmakers in 2010 by ramping production up to five million units per annum.

CARBUYER SPOKE TO Komoco Motors Managing Director Mr Teo Hock Seng (above left with Mr Albert Lee, Deputy GM of Hyundai’s Asian Headquarters) to gain insights into the distributor’s plans for 2005.

CarBuyer: How many orders have you received for the new Sonata?
THS: Before the official launch we took about 30 preliminary orders but we’re targeting to do about 350 to 400 units a month. This is up from the old model where we used to do about 250 to 300 a month.

CarBuyer: Are you going to try for the number one slot this year?
THS: We’re going to focus on consolidating our number two position. And in any case what’s more important to us is maintaining or increasing market share. In this respect we hope to move about 16,000 units in total this year, and that translates to roughly 15 to 19 percent of the pie. Currently Singapore is already one of the countries with the largest, if not the largest market share for Hyundai.

We’ve been focusing on MPVs and SUVs recently so beefing up our product line-up with a new sedan model should do well for us. As long as we stay prominent in buyers’ shopping lists we’ll be happy.

CarBuyer: What onus is on you as a dealer if your product starts to move upmarket?
THS: For one thing, we’ve always emphasised quality service. I have one customer who’s put 300,000 kilometres on his Sonata in just three years, in all that time he’s had nothing but high praise for the car and our service department.

The fact that Hyundai has been putting such huge investments into engineering and R&D makes things easier for us in a way also. Customers are attracted by the price and quality of our products plus the warranty we attach to the Hyundai cars. Our role here is to make sure we look after them properly.

In any case, the way I see it, Hyundai isn’t moving upmarket. It’s just catching up with the times. It’s much easier to sell a quality product at a competitive price than to try to push a premium product anyway.

CarBuyer: Are there any plans for Komoco to take on another brand?
THS: Well at the moment we’re actively exploring taking up Hyundai dealerships in other countries, focusing on the retail side rather than adopting distributorships. But we’re open to other opportunities!