Genesis says it is outpacing Tesla and Lexus

KOREAN luxury brand Genesis says its fast early growth has outpaced both Lexus and Tesla, with the premium arm of the Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) boasting that it required just seven years and eight months to reach one million cumulative sales.

 

But the would-be Mercedes-Benz and BMW rival faces the tough task of proving that its growth curve is sustainable and that it can appeal to customers outside the two ‘big fish’ in the Genesis world – South Korea and the United States – which jointly accounted for 90 per cent of the brand’s 220,000 sales last year.

 

Speaking with GoAuto at the recent 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race, where Genesis competed for the first time in the hypercar class, HMC president and chief executive José Muñoz said Genesis had become the “fastest-growing luxury brand ever in the history of luxury brands”.

 

Having reached a claimed one million cumulative sales in seven years and eight months, Mr Muñoz presented a comparison showing that Genesis had beaten selected rivals, saying it took Lexus nine years, and Tesla 12 years, to reach what the brand sees as a telling seven-digit benchmark.

 

“This is my favourite chart. This shows that since the moment we started selling … we’ve done it faster than anybody else. I think that’s remarkable,” said Mr Muñoz.

 

Achieved in September 2023, the cumulative one million mark was comprised of about 690,000 sales in the South Korean market, plus 310,000 exports.

 

Those exports have so far been dominated by the United States market, which also proved fertile early ground for Lexus in the late 1980s and early 1990s. So far, Genesis sales performance has been modest everywhere else, including in Australia, where the brand delivered 1602 cars last year.

 

The comparison also has limitations.

 

Toyota launched Lexus into a much smaller luxury market than that which exists today, while Tesla’s early growth was constrained by the long gap between the low-volume Roadster proof-of-concept car and its first volume models, the Model S and Model X.

 

Both Tesla and Lexus have long since left their first million sales behind.

 

Lexus now sells more than 850,000 vehicles annually and Tesla has notched up double that result for the past two years. Genesis has some work to do if it wants to match those brands longer-term.

 

Doing so will require the high-achieving US and Korean markets to keep firing, but management expects other regions including Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific to lift.

 

Locally, Genesis is understood to be meeting relatively conservative sales targets, and certainly, the Australian operation is outpacing the success of its European counterparts, but proportionally, the US result is approximately three times stronger.

 

Mr Muñoz acknowledged ahead of the Le Mans race – of which one of the two Genesis entrants finished in a key durability and reliability test – that Genesis still had work to do outside of its strongest markets, pointing to Europe as a key growth pillar and the Asia-Pacific as an important opportunity.

 

The global Hyundai chief said that the US had shown the brand “what to do and how to do (it),” including by carefully matching supply to demand to protect pricing and resale values, while building a high-end retail experience through co-investments with key dealers.

 

Genesis will seek to transpose “recipes” that have worked in the North American market to other regions, including Australia, as it pursues the sustainable growth enjoyed by the brands it clearly sees as key rivals, Lexus and Toyota, which respectively sold 14,561 and 28,856 cars locally in 2025.

 

Supporting the push will be the launch of new petrol-electric hybrid powertrains, a line-up of Magma-badged performance variants, a flagship SUV, and an expanded retail footprint that Genesis says will see key dealers treat customers to more premium hospitality at sales and service touchpoints.

 

Mr Muñoz said that Genesis was targeting 350,000 annual sales by 2030, representing a 55 per cent increase from current levels. That would still leave Genesis trailing Lexus at its current scale, but it would be a material step towards becoming a more substantial player in the luxury segment.