Competitive positionPassenger vehiclesAug ’25 → Aug ’26Independent BII analysis

What caught our attention. Hyundai ranked #3 on Buying Intent among passenger-vehicle brands in Aug ’25, and #3 again in Aug ’26. On a league table, nothing happened. We looked at the distance behind the rank.

Same direction.
A stronger journey.

Why Hyundai’s #3 rank in Aug ’25 and Aug ’26 are poles apart

Same rank. A dramatically stronger Hyundai.

Buying Intent · Aug ’26

Aug ’25 · #3

39.23% behind #2

Aug ’26 · #3

4.82% behind #2

Both years drawn on the same scale.

What the data shows

Measured · What BII data shows

The rank stayed put because the whole top of the category moved. Category Buying Intent rose 147.7% year on year; Hyundai rose faster, at 274%, lifting its share of the category from 13.4% to 20.4%. The brands around it swapped places: Tata Motors went from #4 to #1 and Toyota from #2 to #4.

The strength is not only in Buying Intent. In Aug ’26 Hyundai ranked #1 of 14 on Brand Trust in its category, while its Brand Desire ranked #3: even after rising 69.9% in a month.

The two Augusts hide a busy year. Hyundai reached #1 in Apr ’26 and #2 in three other months; the rank strip shows every month. The steady #3 is a comparison of two endpoints; the months between moved.

The top of the category, month by month

Normalised index, Apr ’25 = 100. Passenger-vehicle category.

Monthly Buying Intent for Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Toyota, Apr ’25 to Aug ’26
Month	Hyundai	Maruti Suzuki	Tata Motors	Toyota
Apr ’25	289.70	473.10	338.10	505.70
May ’25	194.10	586.40	211.70	544.90
Jun ’25	415.10	790.50	442.60	438.00
Jul ’25	177.60	510.10	217.70	342.90
Aug ’25	218.30	455.60	175.70	359.20
Sep ’25	276.20	562.90	408.50	263.80
Oct ’25	709.70	843.40	625.20	298.10
Nov ’25	316.00	711.20	687.20	283.80
Dec ’25	311.10	719.20	417.50	578.60
Jan ’26	219.10	275.60	183.30	196.80
Feb ’26	328.30	286.10	231.20	371.00
Mar ’26	223.10	384.30	126.00	198.50
Apr ’26	636.30	590.00	504.90	239.30
May ’26	412.50	487.50	480.30	228.00
Jun ’26	577.00	630.20	604.30	245.10
Jul ’26	516.30	1191.00	992.70	301.50
Aug ’26	816.20	857.50	895.70	510.90

Hyundai’s rank, every month

Apr ’25 → Aug ’26. Blue: Hyundai at #1 or #2.

Category Buying Intent, YoY: +147.7%
Hyundai Buying Intent, YoY: +274%
Share of category: 13.4% → 20.4%
Brand Trust rank, Aug ’26: #1 of 14
Brand Desire, Aug ’26 MoM: +69.9%

Why this is interesting

Interpreted · What the pattern may mean

Rank is the most reported competitive number and, here, the least informative. The same #3 describes a distant third in 2025 and a near-tie for second in 2026.

Trust leading the category while Desire trails suggests a brand whose reputation is ahead of its appeal: a different lever from a brand that is wanted but not yet relied on.

What might be happening?

Interpreted · Possibilities rather than findings

The data tells us what has changed. It does not by itself establish why. These are directions a brand team could investigate.

One possibility worth investigating is product activity, new or refreshed models can lift Desire quickly, and August’s jump in Desire is sharp.
The pattern may warrant looking at category momentum: with the whole category up 147.7%, part of Hyundai’s rise may be a rising tide rather than ground taken from rivals.
A brand team could test whether the gap to #2 is closing nationally or only in the cities where Hyundai is strongest.

What should Hyundai look at next?

Investigate · Questions BII can take further

Is the gap to #2 narrowing in every city, or only in some?
Does Hyundai’s Trust lead hold among the same age groups where its Buying Intent is rising?
Which Brand Behaviours separate Hyundai from Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors?
Is August’s Desire jump holding, or was it a one-month spike?
How many months has Hyundai stayed within 5% of the brand above it?

Detecting competitive compression

How BII can be used this way

This illustrates how BII reveals competitive distance rather than just rank. Reading every brand’s Buying Intent in the category each month shows where gaps are closing, so a challenger’s approach, or a leader’s thinning margin, is visible before any rank changes.

See the six ways brands use BII

Go deeper in BII

Explore this question by:

City · 16 cities
Zones within a city
Age
Brand Trust
Brand Desire
Brand Behaviours (22)
Competitive set
Monthly trend

Method and caveats

Period: Aug ’25 compared with Aug ’26; monthly ranks Apr ’25 to Aug ’26.
Category: Passenger vehicles.
Base: BII’s monthly national reading across 16 cities.
Reading: Rank is position within the category by Buying Intent. Distance to #2 is 1 − Hyundai ÷ the #2 brand’s reading. Share is Hyundai’s portion of the category’s summed Buying Intent.

Figures updated. The LinkedIn post, drawn before BII’s September category review, showed Hyundai at 815.1, 3% behind Maruti Suzuki at 843.2. Current readings: 816.2 and 857.5, a 4.8% gap. The post’s line “the gap has never been smaller” is not repeated here: the gap to #2 was 4.5% in June ’26.

Independent BII analyses. Brands featured are selected because we find the market development noteworthy; inclusion does not imply a client relationship.

What would this analysis reveal about your brand?

Track Buying Intent, Brand Trust and Brand Desire across your brand, its category and its competitive set: every month.

Brand	Then	Now	Change
Birla Opus	13.90	112.80	+710%
	51.30^*	57.10	+11%
	415.50	377.40	−9%
	39.20	32.20	−18%