![\"Kia-to-launch-its-seven-seater-SUV-Sorento-this-Friday-rapidnews-dailyrapid\"](\"https:\/\/dailyrapidnews.com\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Kia-to-launch-its-seven-seater-SUV-Sorento-this-Friday-rapidnews-dailyrapid.jpg\")
<\/p>\nKia will be launching its seven-seater SUV Sorento this Friday. The vehicle will fall in the same category as Toyota Fortuner.<\/p>\n
It will be Kia\u2019s fourth car to be sold under the present Kia-Lucky setup in Pakistan. The company is already selling its compact SUV Sportage, hatchback Picanto, and minivan Carnival.<\/p>\n
Sorento will have three variants\u20142.4L FWD, 2.4L AWD and 3.5L FWD.<\/p>\n
Research Analyst Abdul Ghani Mianoor of IM Securities says market expectations are that the three variants will fall in the price range of between Rs7 million to Rs9 million.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The analyst added in his report that it will directly compete with Toyota Fortuner, which comes in 2.7L and 2.8L engines in a price range of between Rs7.7 million and 9.2 million.<\/p>\n
But another auto sector analyst Shakaib Khan thinks otherwise.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have a direct competitor of Sorento yet,\u201d said Khan. \u201cIt is a seven-seater and it has three rows of seats. It is a medium-size crossover SUV. It is bigger than a Rush, Sportage, or Tucson but smaller than a Fortuner or a Prado.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khan did not think that Sorento can hit the Toyota Fortuner market much as the latter is a proper SUV while the former is a crossover.<\/p>\n
Khan says Sorento will have a better ride within the city but the Fortuner would be better for off-road experiences. This means that the Fortuner\u2019s demand in rural areas may remain unaffected but the Sorento could put a dent in its urban demand.<\/p>\n
Kia has been assembling cars in Pakistan under green-field status, which it received following the government\u2019s Auto Development Policy (ADP 2016-21). The government launched the policy to attract foreign investment and help increase competition in the auto sector, which was dominated by three Japanese companies for a long time.<\/p>\n
The ADP 2016-21 policy ends in June 2021 and the models introduced by new companies, known as new entrants in the industry, will be considered for duty relaxations. According to a source, all new companies will try to launch as many models as they can before the ADP 2016-21 policy ends.<\/p>\n
According to Mianoor, Kia has become the fourth largest car making company in Pakistan by sales. It has a plant capacity of 50,000 units per annum, and the company has presently been operating on a double-shift basis since January this year. It is also expected that Kia may launch at least two other vehicles before June, in order to avail tax benefits from the policy.<\/p>\n
Kia-Lucky is a subsidiary of listed company Lucky Cement. The stock price of Lucky Cement moved up by over 4% from Rs792 to Rs839 by the time this story was filed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kia will be launching its seven-seater SUV Sorento this Friday. The vehicle will fall in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"yoast_head":"\n