Hyundai taps into Brazil car market

Hyundai Motor Co. launched the midsized truck Mighty in Brazil on Monday, tapping into South America’s largest commercial vehicle market.

The Mighty trucks sold in Brazil will be shipped as complete knockdown kits and assembled at CAOA Group’s facility in Anapolis in the state of Goias, the company said.

CAOA Group is also responsible for sales of Hyundai vehicles in Brazil.

The company has set the Mighty’s sales target for this year at 4,000 units, and hopes to raise it to 5,000 in 2012, and to 10,000 in 2015.

Along with launching the vehicle in Brazil, Hyundai signed on Ecuador’s Eljuri Group to assemble Mighty trucks from July. The company added that the deal with the Ecuadorian company will also allow it to enter the Venezuelan market.

According to the carmaker, Venezuela does not allow imports of complete vehicles, but up to 10,000 automobiles produced in Ecuador are exempt from the rule.

The company is hoping that the latest deals will fuel its expansion in the Latin American commercial vehicle market.

The company sold about 4,000 commercial vehicles in Latin America in 2009, but the figure rose to 7,000 units last year.

This year, the company is hoping to increase the number to 14,000, and again to greater than 20,000 in 2015, which would give it a more than 5 percent share of the region’s commercial vehicle market.

By Choi He-suk  (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)