Can Bayon do for Hyundai what Victoris is doing for Maruti Suzuki?

Hyundai has launched the mid-sized SUV, Bayon, with much hope and some fanfare.

That it comes almost two years after its last major launch—the Hyundai Creta Electric in January 2025—shows how rough a phase it has been for the Korean automotive giant, which has been steadily losing market share.

That’s also why a lot is riding on the vehicle, widely seen as a rival to Maruti Suzuki’s Victoris, in a category that’s among the biggest volume drivers for automakers in the country. The vehicle sits between Hyundai’s wildly popular Creta and its popular model, Venue. Maruti Suzuki launched the Victoris last year, and it has been a runaway success, retailing more than 10,000 units a month.

“Along with Creta and Bayon, we are looking at a volume of over 250,000 units per annum going forward,” Tarun Garg, MD & CEO of Hyundai Motors India, said while launching the vehicle. ‘With this volume, very clearly, we can continue with our segment leadership in the mid-SUV segment. And 250,000 units is not a limit; it is a baseline; we will continue to grow.”

Bayon expected to help Hyundai to overtake Mahindra and TMPV

Hyundai needs the Bayon to fire. The Korean automaker has had a tough few years, losing its much-coveted number 2 position to Mahindra and sitting fourth behind Tata Motors. The Bayon is the first of 26 new products the Korean auto giant is launching in India as part of a ₹45,000 crore capital expenditure plan it launched in India for the next three years to win back lost ground. Hyundai has also appointed an Indian as CEO of its Indian unit, the first such move since it entered the country three decades ago.

“The Bayon has to prove it can win new customers, not just pull them from the Venue and Creta, in one of the most important price bands in the market,” Vinay Piparsania, founder of MillenStrat Advisory & Research and the former executive director at Ford India, says. “It won’t change the picture on its own, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction,” Piparsania, who led the launch of the wildly successful Ford EcoSport in India, says.

The mid-size SUV segment sells around 72,000 units every month in 2026, compared with 23,000 units in 2021, signaling an annual growth rate of 25.6%. That’s expected to grow to 118,000 units by 2032, with the category’s share of total SUV sales rising from 28% to 36%. Based on those projections, the category would account for roughly two-thirds of incremental SUV volumes over the period.

Today, about 68 percent of Hyundai’s sales come from the SUV segment, with the rest split between sedans and hatchbacks. Of this, the Creta is the largest volume driver, accounting for 31 percent of the sales, followed by Venue and Exter. “Hyundai had a clear gap between the Venue and the Creta. A buyer who had outgrown a sub-four-meter SUV/Crossover, but wasn’t ready for Creta prices, had to look elsewhere, and the Bayon now fills that gap,” says Piparsania. “There will no doubt be some overlap with the top Venue and entry Creta variants. But if positioned well, the net effect should be incremental.”

“The success of the Bayon launch remains key on the back of which we factor in ~11 -12% growth in FY28 E, higher than the industry,” Elara Capital said in a report on Hyundai Motors. “We expect HMIL’s market share and margins to have bottomed out in H 1 and expect an EBITDA growth of around 34 % YoY in H2 FY27E on a low base. While commodity inflation remains a near -term concern, improving product mix and operating leverage should support earnings recovery.”

Currently, Hyundai’s portfolio in India includes two compact hatchbacks, a mid-size and compact sedan, a wide SUV ladder, and a limited premium EV presence. The Bayon steps into this mix. The Exter and Venue address the entry SUV segment, while the Creta and Alcazar anchor the higher-volume, higher-value SUV space. But with everybody from Skoda to Renault, Mahindra, and Tata making the competition grueling, Hyundai needs a winner that can replicate the Creta’s runaway success to win back lost ground.

“So, the Bayon is very much an expected move, and a sensible one,” Piparsania says. “The real opportunity isn’t the existing SUV/Crossover buyer. It’s the large pool of hatchback and sedan owners ready for their next car who want an SUV/Crossover body style at roughly what they’d have paid for a well-equipped sedan. Many of them would have left Hyundai at upgrade time, and now they have a natural next step within the brand.”

Hyundai is currently the largest player in the SUV category in the country, with the Creta driving significant volumes for the Korean auto giant. With sales of over 200,000 units a year, the Creta had become the first vehicle in the country's fast-growing midsize SUV segment to reach those figures. But this year, Creta’s dominance has also waned amid growing competition, with sales down 9% year-on-year in the first six months of FY27, even as the broader segment grew more than 50%.

For instance, Maruti Suzuki’s Victoris, an SUV launched last year and positioned below the Grand Vitara, clocked sales of 100,000 units in just eight months and has been a big volume driver for the country’s largest carmaker. “The Victoris succeeded because it is a competitive product, and then Maruti amplified it,” says Piparsania. “Maruti has unmatched brand trust, especially with first-time and value-conscious buyers. Its distribution reaches deep into smaller towns, which is where much of India’s growth is coming from now.”

In its first year, the Victoris sold 1.47 lakh units and has cemented itself as one of Maruti Suzuki’s top-selling models in the country. Hyundai meanwhile has launched the Bayon with seven trims, across manual and automatic, with a CNG version planned for next year.

“The next 5Y should see a meaningful improvement in HMIL’s product cadence, with 26 strategic product actions, including 7 new nameplates, a localized mass-market compact E-SUV and a Bayon-based mid-size ICE-SUV,” brokerage firm Emkay had said. “This marks a clear shift from the relatively tepid product cycle over the past 5 years, which should enable HMIL to address key whitespaces and rebuild its market share. The new product actions are aligned with evolving consumer preferences, particularly the premiumization-led shift toward SUVs and a multi-powertrain portfolio.”

The launch has come at the right time. Over to the festive season to see if Hyundai can make its magic work once again.