Despite supply woes, Hyundai vehicle sales up

Hyundai Asia Resources Inc. (Hari), the distributor of Hyundai vehicles in the Philippines, continued its positive streak in September, with sales rising by 34 percent to 2,017 units, despite slight disruptions in supply.

This brought the firm’s total sales from January to September to 17,693 units, up by 9 percent from year-ago level.

Hari president and CEO Ma. Fe Perez-Agudo said the continued uptrend in sales allowed the company to be on track to reaching its full-year sales target of 24,000 units. This was on the back of strong macroeconomic fundamentals, robust business process outsourcing (BPO) industry and increased OFW remittances, as well as new product offerings.

The new offerings included two new variants of the Starex model which was launched Friday night. These are Grand Starex Gold, which sells for P2.368 million, and the Grand Starex Platinum, P2.588 million.

Through these two new Starex variants, Hari is able to venture for the first time in the “local reassembly” of the interiors and features of one its top selling models.

“We want to support the local auto parts makers. We want to buy the seats here and reassemble the accessories so that all these can be done in the Philippines.”

Hari imports the vehicles as completely built units (CBU) but they come without the seats.

“This is the first time we’re doing it. The others are doing it but on a very small scale, and not on a commercial level,” Agudo said.

“There are no modifications except for the internal design. We didn’t touch the Starex per se. We added grills, the 16-inch alloy wheels, and then the captain seats. (We customized) more of the interiors because we wanted to upgrade the comfort we can provide (the users). There’s also the 22-inch LCD TV, new dashboard, a new front and rear bumper, among others,” she further clarified.