Hyundai Motor’s Sonata shuts down its Asan plant again due to inventory processing

Input 2021.02.25 15:29

As the Sonata sales slump continued Hyundai Motor Company (005380)The Asan plant will be shut down for five days starting on the 8th of next month. The Asan Plant was shut down last year to handle the Sonata inventory.

Hyundai Motor Company announced on the 25th that the Asan plant will temporarily suspend operation of the plant for 5 days on the 8th to 12th of next month. He explained that the reason for the shutdown was inventory control due to the Sonata’s sluggish sales. The Asan plant produces the Sonata and Grandeur, Hyundai Motor’s representative sedans.

Unlike Granger, which sold 14,5463 units last year, ranking the No. 1 in domestic sales for four consecutive years, the Sonata last year only sold 67,440 units in Korea. This is a 32.6% decrease from the previous year. Last year, the Sonata sold less than 200,000 units annually at home and abroad for the first time since 2002.

The Sonata, once referred to as the’national car’, is Hyundai Motor’s representative sedan that has been on sale for 34 years since the first-generation model was launched in 1985. Since 2001, it occupied the first place in domestic car sales 12 times and sold close to 500,000 units annually until the early 2010s, but now it is difficult to find it within the top 10 domestic car sales rankings.

An official from Hyundai Motor said, “We decided to temporarily suspend the operation in order to control the quantity,” and “I don’t know if there will be temporary holidays in the future, but I will try to avoid them as much as possible.”