Hyundai Motor's 3rd-quarter net profit surges to record high amid jump in sales

[zner2525]

I am now a Hyundai fan.. unang una, nabilib talaga ako sa hyundai.. ewan ko kung sinong mga engineers at designers ang hinire ng hyundai..? pero wala akong masabi sa mga cars nila ngayon.. from the very affordable sports car Genesis Coupe to the very efficient and luxurious Sonata.. meron pang very reliable fuel efficient Accent.. lahat na ng very.. haha! maganda talaga line-up ng cars ng hyundai ngayon.. halos lahat ng hahanapin mo meron sila.. Right products at the right time talaga.. Good Job Hyundai!!

[jimnyeatworld]

the reason why Hyundai is offering cheaper is bec. they have one labor country to produce it. unlike sa Japan, competing pa ang Mitsu, Toyota, Honda, Nissan internally.

it's almost as if the Japanese, the Germans and the American carmakers are up against one nationality when they compete against Hyundai-Kia.

kung yan China with the biggest laborforce nga lang will unite and come up with one powerful car brand, baka matalo nila ang buong mundo.

[niky]

[SIZE=2]Is Hyundai Cheating?
[/SIZE]

[SIZE=2]All Will Drive by Vernon Sarne 16 Sep 2010[/SIZE]



I’m a big admirer of what Hyundai has accomplished around the world in general and in our country in particular. I’ve been a courtside witness to how its brand equity has soared in our market since the days when it was still being distributed by Francisco Motors. Today, under the proficient handling of current distributor Hyundai Asia Resources Inc., Hyundai has not only posted amazing sales figures (103-percent year-to-date growth from last year), it has also--perhaps more important--climbed to third place overall, dislodging former powerhouse Honda. In so doing, Hyundai has threatened the strong hold of the Japanese on our car market. I have no doubt both Toyota and Mitsubishi--the only two carmakers Hyundai has yet to overtake here--have been keeping a wary eye on the Korean brand.

I have never thought of this achievement as anything surprising and unexpected. I’m not one to jump on bandwagons. I saw this coming. To prove my point, more than three years ago, in May 2007, I put three Hyundai vehicles (Elantra, Tiburon and Veracruz) on the cover of Top Gear, marking the very first time that a Korean brand made it on our glossy wrapper. (UPDATE: I stand corrected. Our April 2005 issue had the Hyundai Tiburon on the cover. My apologies; I wasn't with the magazine then.) My friends at Hyundai never knew about this, but I had to calculatingly justify to management why I was doing this. To their mind, the time for Korean cars hadn’t arrived yet, and that the sure-fire way to sell copies on the newsstands was still via popular Japanese nameplates. I probably put my job on the line by pushing the idea through.

Fortunately, the issue sold decently well. And Hyundai just went from strength to strength after that. These days, I can honestly tell you that a Hyundai cover for us will sell just as briskly as a Toyota, Mitsubishi or Honda cover. We have concrete numbers to prove this. Come to think of it, our Kia Forte Koup cover also sold well last year. Maybe our market has really warmed up to the Koreans?

Anyway, my point is that I have never found any reason to suspect that there is something irregular about Hyundai’s phenomenal success in our market. Mainly because it is consistent with the brand’s rise in stock around the world and also with our readers’ impassioned reception of its vehicles. Add to this the fact that HARI officers and employees are truly nice people. They’ve always struck me as hard-working and professional--overachieving individuals who will stop at nothing to push their brand to the top.

Yesterday, however, a story in the motoring section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer caught my attention. Titled ‘Breach Of Trust’ and written by our very own Botchi Santos, the piece was essentially a blind item about a certain surging carmaker that allegedly brings in vehicles at extremely undervalued rates. In other words, the company in question is importing cars with unbelievably low declared values. “Bringing in a car valued at $337 as per customs declaration, even before taxes, does sound fishy,” Botchi wrote, quoting from Business Statistics Monitor documents handed to him by an officer of a Japanese carmaker.

Botchi also wrote: “It is not just the $337 car I mentioned. (There’s) a hot-selling compact SUV with a customs-declared value of about P420,000 and (which) retails for about a million and a half pesos...or a hot-selling van with a declared value of $11,652 or P540,000 per unit, retailing at around P2 million.”

Ever the curious guy, I asked around for the identity of said carmaker, and the bottle stopped spinning in Hyundai’s direction. “It’s Hyundai,” my contacts said. Apparently, the vehicles being referred to in the article are the Getz, the Tucson and the Starex. This, they said, is how HARI has been able to price its cars so low.

Of course, that’s only one side of the story. We need to get the other side to arrive at any sort of credibility in this allegation. So I asked the marketing services department of HARI for comments. A succinct “no comment” was all I got. And then, minutes later--perhaps realizing the implication of a no-comment response--the HARI marketing officer said he really couldn’t chime in on the issue since it’s not his territory. It’s for their finance guys to address this, he pointed out.

Fair enough, although I doubt I’d get a call from any HARI finance officer anytime soon. So now, I’m left to grapple with two bothersome thoughts.

First, is any of this true? Could Hyundai really be cheating in our market? Do their cars really come in undervalued to dodge proper taxes? Could this be the reason Hyundai cars are so competitively priced in our country?

Second, is this merely a smear campaign against Hyundai orchestrated by its main rivals--chief of which are the Japanese brands it is currently threatening? Is the entire local auto industry conspiring to somehow “moderate” Hyundai’s unprecedented rise?

If the first case were true, I’d be bitterly disappointed. I’ve rooted for Hyundai all this time and am genuinely happy for its success. But if the latter were the case, this issue will only make the Korean brand stronger--much to the competition’s chagrin. Either way, a shameful Pinoy business trick will come out in the open. Let’s see which is which.




http://www.topgear.com.ph/features/c...undai-cheating

Very interesting article. Trust Vernon Sarne to have the stones to publish something like this!

I'd always thought HARI did it via the MotorImage trick (which is perfectly legal)... but I'm waiting to hear what the truth is...

Because, let's face it... looking at what Korean taxes do to the prices of Kia and Ssangyong cars, there are some Hyundai models that are ridiculously underpriced.

[jimnyeatworld]

the hyundais are also cheaper than the japanese in the US Market. i doubt that they can do that "trick" in the US customs also. this is just a demo job article.

kaya nga ambilis ng Hyundai Sonata doon. the Japanese should face the music, matatalo talaga sila if they have so many brands competing internally to offer to the world market. kung minsan nga redundant na tignan.


if Hari can only take over the Kia brand here, they'd be more competitive. sa US ata, parang cooperating ang Hyundai-Kia that's why ambilis nila umakyat.

[ben_david19]

alam ko sa ibang bansa competitive din ang pricing ng Hyundai. naiisip ko, baka pinagtutulungan lang sila ng Toyota-Mitsu-Honda (lalo na Honda) hehe.

[armscor40]

seems this article got to do w/ latest exposed of Vernon Sarne, somehow theres a relation on the matter involving HARI's prices altho it was released sometime last month by Irma Isip of Malaya...quote:

CBU importers told to emulate Hyundai

BY IRMA ISIP
The Motor Vehicle Parts Manufacturers Association of the Philippines (MVPMAP) yesterday said importers of completely built-up (CBU) vehicles should emulate Hyundai Automotive Resources Inc. (HARI), distributor of Hyundai vehicles in the country, in finding a way to compete in a fair way.
In a statement, MVPMAP president Raffy Villarreal said Hyundai’s focus on finding and developing niche markets is the way to go for auto importers and distributors.
Villarreal said HARI, which imports and distributes most of its products, has moved up to third place in the local market, edging out some established Japanese assemblers.
"This is just a plain case of some local importers and distributors who are doing well and others who are not. Maybe, it would be good for the others to learn from the Hyundai experience," he said.
Hyundai is among the market leaders in the passenger van and SUV categories.
MVPMAP’s statement came in the wake of complaints by pure importers that the playing field, specifically under the proposed Motor Vehicle Development Program (MVDP), is uneven and unfair.
Villarreal said the playing fields should naturally be different for manufacturers/assemblers than for pure importers/distributors.
"Manufacturing and assembly is the more relevant field, that is (it faces more) competition among countries in a regional arena and not competition in the local market (alone)," Villarreal said.
He said government should focus on helping the auto and parts manufacturing sector and on completely shutting down the market for illegally-imported used cars.
"Manufacturers should focus on manufacturing then breaking into the export market," Villarreal said.
Latest sales figures from the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. show that as of June, Hyundai is now the third bestselling brand with 9,834 units sold or a market share of 12.0 percent. It edged out car assemblers Honda Cars Philippines at fourth place and Isuzu Philippines at the fifth slot.
MVPMAP said the Philippine auto and parts manufacturing industry now lags behind Asean neighbors Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. The Philippines is at a very distant fourth with new-kid-on-the-block Vietnam fast catching up.
Even Australia with a population of only a fourth of the Philippines’ produces 500 percent more cars.
"There is a lot of catching up to do," Villarreal said.
Villarreal said there is a lot of idle capacity available.
For parts makers, the idle capacity is about 60 percent.
"The challenge now is to bring this idle plant capacity down to 40 percent or even lower," he said.
Villarreal said local auto and parts manufacturers have over 65,000 workers dependent on them.
Government, he said, should provide incentives, support and the right business environment for auto and parts manufacturers to be more competitive in the international arena.
"More jobs will then be generated and soon, more local products can be exported," Villarreal said.



source: http://www.malaya.com.ph/08112010/busi7.html

[mazingerZ]

There's this industry buzz that the reason why Hyundai's sales are on the up is due to the underdeclaration of CBU values with customs.