SEOUL: Hyundai Motor is making its boldest attempt in years to win back Chinese consumers, betting on China-tailored Ioniq electric vehicles (EV) to fuel a comeback in the world’s largest automotive market.
Last week, Hyundai officially introduced its flagship EV brand Ioniq to the Chinese market, unveiling two concept cars at a brand launch event – the Ioniq Venus sedan and the Earth sport utility vehicle.
Hyundai is gearing up to roll out a broader electrification strategy and debut its mass-production Ioniq model later this month at Auto China 2026, which runs from April 24 to May 3.
“The newly launched Ioniq brand in China evolves beyond a traditional product lineup into a broader mobility ecosystem,” the company said in a statement.
“While drawing on strong global experience, Ioniq was shaped specifically for the Chinese market, integrating local technologies and partnerships with Hyundai’s established standards of safety and quality.”
Li Fenggang, president of Beijing Hyundai Motor, the company’s joint venture with BAIC Motor, said that, beginning with the two concept cars, Hyundai will continue to present products that “reflect deep insight into Chinese customers and our genuine commitment to this market”.
Li’s appointment as the head of Hyundai’s Chinese operation in November was widely seen as a sign of that focus.
By naming a Chinese national to lead the joint venture for the first time in its 23-year history, Hyundai signalled its determination to deeper localisation and to give local leadership greater strategic authority in one of the world’s most competitive auto markets.
Hyundai is betting that with its renewed EV push, it could reclaim its former glory in China, once counted among the carmaker’s most lucrative markets.
From 2010 to 2016, Hyundai sold over one million cars every year in China, peaking at 1.1 million in 2016 – making China the carmaker’s largest market, surpassing even South Korea.
But its fortunes took a sharp turn after a diplomatic row between Seoul and Beijing over the 2017 deployment of THAAD, an advanced US anti-missile system, in South Korea.
Annual sales plunged 30% to 785,000 units in 2017, and continued to erode, falling to around 440,000 units by 2020.
The slide has yet to bottom out and by 2025, annual sales had dwindled to roughly 130,000 units, leaving Hyundai clutching less than 1% of the market.
The decline was hastened by China’s aggressive EV push, which propelled the surge of homegrown brands and steadily wrested market share away from established foreign automakers.
Chinese brands, led by BYD and Geely, now capture nearly 70% of China’s auto market, which sell over 34 million units annually.
Struggling to keep up with homegrown EV makers, backed by generous state subsidies, tax incentives and a local battery supply chain that drove prices down, some global automakers choose to scale back their investments or pull out of the Chinese market altogether.
Hyundai, however, is taking the opposite approach and doubling down on the market under its “In China, For China, To Global” strategy.
“Hyundai cannot afford to give up on China, even though the market has become far more difficult,” said Kim Pil-su, an automotive engineering professor at Daelim University. — The Korea Herald/ANN
