Hyundai has a lot to celebrate for its luxury brand, Genesis. That’s because South Korea’s lone luxury car brand recently broke the one million sales milestone. It's quite a feat given that Genesis, as a standalone brand, was only established in late 2015.
According to the company’s sales report for August 2023, Genesis had sold 1,008,804 units as of the end of the previous month. It means that the millionth Genesis vehicle drove off the dealership lot during that period. Sadly, there’s no way of knowing what kind of Genesis model it is, so somewhere out there is the one millionth Genesis ever sold.
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But that got us thinking: Is there a chance that Hyundai’s luxury division will be sold here? Curious, we went to the World Intellectual Property Office database to find out.
After a quick search, we were surprised to see that the Genesis brand is, indeed, trademarked in the Philippines. Mind you, the status of the filing is still pending, and the application was dated February 24, 2023. A fairly recent update, then.
Curiously, the trademark wasn’t put under Nice Class 12 which is for ‘Vehicles; apparatus for locomotion by land, air or water’. All car manufacturers classify their products under Nice Class 12, which is why it’s baffling that the Genesis trademark here isn’t under that. Instead, it’s filed under Nice Class 43 or ‘Services for providing food and drink; temporary accommodation’. Just to be sure that this isn’t some random catering service, we checked the name’s holder, and it really is Hyundai Motor Company.
Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Genesis is confirmed for the Philippine market. One possibility is Hyundai simply registering in various patent and trademark offices worldwide. All car manufacturers do that, Hyundai being no exception. Another could be Hyundai Philippines could be considering it and have the name ready once the company is ready to launch, should that time come.
Should Hyundai bring in Genesis here, it should be a good match for Lexus and the German establishment. That said, it remains to be seen if there is still room for another luxury marque in the country.
