Hyundai is also losing hope and considering selling its plant in St. Petersburg, according to Moscow media
“The Russian market could become more volatile and could even stagnate. We risk no longer being able to deliver new vehicles,” the group warned, as quoted by Russian news agency Tass.
Korean brands Kia and Hyundai are also preparing to leave the Russian market, where they have been the only alternative to Chinese imports in recent months. Kia has already moved most of its Russian office to Kazakhstan, and has confirmed plans to start assembling cars there in a joint venture with local company Allur Auto.
Comments are heard in the Russian media that this enterprise will be mainly aimed at exporting to Russia – perhaps “in the second way”, so as not to directly violate the sanctions.
Kia and Hyundai were respectively the number 2 and 3 players in the Russian market before the war in Ukraine, second only to AvtoVAZ in terms of sales. In 2021, the two Korean companies sold 205,000 and 197,000 vehicles, respectively.
After the start of the war, the Koreans waited, hoping to save their Russian business. Now, however, this hope seems to have disappeared, because Hyundai is also considering the sale of its Russian plant in St. Petersburg, Gazeta.ru claims. There is also speculation about the price – about 500 million dollars, which according to experts is practically half of the real value of the enterprise.
