The company received 30 per cent to 32 per cent of the total bookings each from the northern, southern and western region. The eastern region accounted for 6 to 7 per cent of the total bookings.

Around 70 dealers have set shop in the country. The Delhi-Faridabad-Noida and Gurgaon region has eight dealers. Mumbai has five dealers, Chennai has four, while Calcutta, Pune and Chandigarh have two dealerships each.

A company official said that "on realistic estimate, the company had expected around 8,000 bookings and an optimistic figure of 10,000."

Hyundai Motor India will start deliveries from October 18, and on an average there will bea waiting period of 45 days. The company is accepting bookings against full payment for the car. The company plans to re-open bookings once these are cleared.

It is learnt that Hyundai Motor had communicated to finance companies around six months back that Rs 2.99 lakh will be the `introductory price' and may be increased only after seeing the market conditions next year. This will depend on certain factors including: the pricing strategy adopted by other manufacturers, particularly for the Telco Indica and the kind of competition others would bring in the passenger car segment.

The company was earlier thinking of a price of Rs 3.19 to Rs 3.2 lakh, but stunned the industry last month by pricing its base model at a much lower price of Rs 2.99 lakh. "The real price of the car which was discussed in the company initially was Rs 3.2 lakh," a company executive said.

"But right now, we are not pricing it below cost," he added.

It expects to make profits from September next year and will achieve thebreak-even point after selling 50,000 cars.

The company, which has set a target of 20,000 cars for the first six months -- during October 1998 to March 1999, has an annual installed capacity of 1.2 lakh units at its plant near Chennai.

Hyundai Motor India plans to export engine and transmission sets to Korea to meet the demand of the Atos. The Atos has a six-month waiting period in Korea.