The chief of South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor Group on Tuesday called for strengthened efforts to develop luxury, environmentally friendly and sports utility vehicles to catch up with the latest market trends.

Group Chairman Chung Mong-koo made the calls during his visit to the US sales branch and a design center in California. 

Chung said the future-oriented strategy is needed to further expand Hyundai's presence in the US market, the world's second-largest auto market. 

"The most important thing is the changing future of the auto industry," Chung said in a meeting with senior officials. "Future has already begun. We have to get ahead of the market through innovation, customer service and quality of products."

Chung discussed ways to foster luxury sedan Genesis as the representative Korean brand and stressed the importance of technology development for eco-friendly cars. 

The group said its US sales continued to outpace that of the market, partly on a sharp increase in sales of its Genesis luxury sedan.

In the first eight months of the year, the Genesis sold 24,917 cars in the US market, accounting for a 13.8-percent share of the US market for luxury passenger cars.

On Wednesday, Chung will head to Mexico to attend a ceremony celebrating the construction of Kia Motors' new production facility. The Kia plant in Mexico began production in May and has an annual capacity of 300,000 cars. 

(Yonhap)