2.0 Environmental Analysis
2.2 Weaknesses I. Low Brand Recognition and Brand Power (Late Entrant)
In automobile industry, brand image signifies an important entry barrier. Which would also affects in many aspects, such as price of car and target consumers. Moreover, Hyundai Motors still low brand recognition as compared to other larger firms which causes the firm harder in grabbing a wide range of buyers. As the low brand recognition, price depreciation rate is very high in comparison to Toyota or Honda. Therefore, it limits new car buyers from buying Hyundai.

II. Technological Advancement
Investors that invest in Hyundai are favored toward increasing the market share and larger advertisement schemes, instead of creating drastic technological advancement. Hyundai is still a runner-up in the area where all the rivals begun to produce Hybrid vehicles. As a result, Hyundai could not compete in some areas of the market where technological advancement is critical.

III. Small Pool of Previous Buyers
Most consumers do research before purchasing an automobile. The feedbacks from previous buyers can be a decisive factor for many consumers. Nonetheless, Hyundai does not have a huge pool of previous buyers to provide feedback, thus many careful consumers hesitate to buy Hyundai.

IV. Product recalls
Over the past few years before 2012, Hyundai recalled more than 300,000 cars in over sea market to fix manufacturing and design defects. Product recalls negatively impact Hyundai’s reputation. Needless to say, recall is good policy, but frequent recall could arise loss of customers and it would become weakness. V. Bankruptcy of middle sized companies supplying components
There were some articles about Hyundai Motor’s primary supplier bankrupted where Hyundai Motor’s had faced crises of production line. News of bankrupt crisis of supplying components that support Hyundai Motors can still be found. The company should find counter plan.

2.3 Threat

I. Foreign cars imported in cheap prices
In 2010, there were many low priced foreign cars entered the domestic market. Moreover, Hyundai’s new model’s prices have been slightly raised. So from next year, there’s no big price difference between foreign car and domestic car. This situation will change the domestic market share. Until now Hyundai hold around 75% of domestic market, but these days, customers complains about Hyundai’s monopoly and price policy. And now, they have other options, so if Hyundai wants to hold their customers, they have to come up with new strategies.

II. Overflow of Used Vehicles
Current U.S. used car market is very saturated due to the huge influx of lease returned vehicles and car owners looking to sell their vehicles. This causes an overall drop of all used car available. This drives the residual values of Hyundai vehicles much lower than before. Given that this was Hyundai’s weakness for a long time, further losses in the market share from the pool of consumers looking forward to sell their vehicles are inevitable.

III. Chinese Automakers
Chinese automakers are presenting the greatest threats for Hyundai, since they plan to arrive at the American market, threatening many present competing firms. Chinese automakers are capable of making huge amount of vehicles at very low cost, thus having the capability of taking a huge market share away from Hyundai’s target consumers.

IV. Saturated Market with Overflow of Similar Line-Ups
Hyundai’s main product, Sonata, is a mid-size sedan. However, American auto market is oversaturated and is still increasing in numbers with mid-size sedan line-ups. Therefore, Hyundai is threatened by multiple lineups from multiple automakers at once.

V. Decreasing world automotive brand value
World’s car market has been slightly decreased since economy crisis, in 2008. So many car companies in U.S.A went bankrupt. And this market situation would be critical threaten for Hyundai. Until now, Hyundai could use this crisis for their opportunity to expand their market power. But if this situation will be last longer, then Hyundai would get serious damage, too.