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Has Hyundai left it too late to enter the ute market?
The South Korean brand has said it will launch a dual-cab ute within the next three years, by which time there is likely to be as many as 20 rivals, all more established, some for decades.
And at a time when the amount of ute buyers has stopped growing exponentially, so the total volume of ute sales is stagnating as more rivals come in. In other words, by the time Hyundai’s ute hits showrooms they will be fighting for a smaller slice of the pie.
So why is Hyundai Australia Chief Executive Officer Don Romano so determined to get a ute here if it will be so late to the party in a potentially shrinking market? Well, there’s a clear reason why he sees it as a ‘must-have’ vehicle for the brand locally — and it isn’t just to fit in.
“[The ute market is] shrinking, but it's still so large, it is not just that market though,” Romano revealed. “This is the key, when I drive down my street and I see a ute in a driveway and there's usually another car next to it, because most people that have a ute, someone in the family has something else. Wouldn't you know that most of them are the same brand," he said
“So we're not just missing out on the utes, we're also missing out on the brand experience in order to be able to get into the family and let them know that ‘hey, I mean some of them are EVs. Some of them are just small sedans and some of them are big SUVs.
“But if they're accustomed to going to a certain dealership and a certain area, chances are, they're gonna find out, ‘Hey, what else do you have in this range?’ And we're out of that whole area right now. So yes, we're late, but we're gonna come on strong, I guess is the best way to put it, when we do come out.”
Romano’s point, that successful ute brands tend to be the most successful brands at selling multiple vehicles into a household would seemingly be born out by the sales data. Toyota and Ford, which sell the most utes, both have success with their respective SUVs. The Everest is Ford’s second best-selling model, while Toyota sells a large volume of RAV4, Prado and LandCruisers.
Hyundai is currently the only brand in the top 10 sellers that does not currently offer a ute. It lags behind Toyota on SUV sales in every segment of the market (except small SUV, where the Kona out-performs the Corolla Cross).
Romano is clearly hoping that by adding a ute Hyundai will be able to lift sales across its entire model range, which would turn around several years of sales decline in Australia.
As we’ve previously reported, the Hyundai ute is expected to be based on a version of the underpinnings used on the Kia Tasman, but will feature enough changes that it cannot be considered a ‘badge engineering’ exercise.
Key amongst these differences will be unique Hyundai styling and a range-extended electric vehicle powertrain. Romano isn’t ready to reveal too many details yet, but has made it clear that he believes launching a turbo diesel-powered ute in 2028 would be a major mistake.
