Hyundai’s new Avante sells over 100,000 units within one year

Hyundai Motor’s sedan Avante has sold over 100,000 units nearly one year after its release, the company revealed Sunday.

The all-new Avante, which was unveiled in April last year, racked up 104,937 sales as of April, and 111,634 units as of last month.

Having sold over 77,000 models within last year alone, it is the second bestselling sedan and third bestselling passenger car in the country so far this year, following Hyundai Motor’s Grandeur and Kia’s Carnival, which sold 43,347 and 39,605 units, respectively.

During the month of May alone, Avante was knocked down to the fourth spot by Kia’s midsized SUV Sorento.

Among the new Avante cars that have been sold, the hybrid model sold 6,230 units, accounting for 5.6 percent of the car’s overall sales.

The figures come after the seventh-generation Avante hit the market in 2020 five years after its predecessor, marking a departure in design and a stronger focus on safety and convenience.

Priced at around 15 million won ($13,200), market analysts have said the latest model is designed to appeal to younger drivers for its cost-effectiveness.

In a sign of the model’s popularity, the new Avante saw 10,058 preorders on its first day, a nearly ninefold jump from the model’s sixth generation, which was released in 2015.

Earlier this year, it also won the 2021 North American Car of the Year Award, becoming one of very few cars to have won the award more than once, alongside the Chevrolet Corvette and Honda Civic, according to the automaker.

In March, the Hispanic Motor Press Awards also named the new Avante as 2021’s Car Model of the Year.

Its US sales have risen this year as well, having sold 59,272 units as of last month compared to last year’s figure of 40,889 units over the same period.

By Yim Hyun-su (hyunsu@heraldcorp.com)