Hyundai Motor India Ltd. (HMIL) said it had spent close to Rs. 60 crore to upgrade its mid-size sedan Verna.
Disclosing this at a press conference held at its facility near here on Thursday, Arvind Saxena, Director (Marketing and Sales), said the upgraded Verna Transform would be available in five variants.
Verna was first launched in September 2006. It had cumulative sales of 82,000 units. Mr. Saxena said the upgrading would result in 25-30 per cent rise in Verna sales. On a rough estimate, he expected Hyundai Motor to sell over 2,000 units of Verna Transform a month.
Queried if the recent strike at the factory had had any adverse fallout on the launch schedule of Verna Transform, he replied in the negative.
H. W. Park, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, said that the move to shift a part of the production of i20 vehicles (meant for exports to Europe) to Turkey was driven more by market imperatives. HMIL, Mr. Saxena said, had already launched an i20 face-lift sometime ago. The Verna upgrade could be followed by the launch of sports utility vehicle Sante Fe by the year-end, he said.
Mr. Saxena said the company hoped to grow its sales by over 15 per cent in the domestic market in 2010.
