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Kia posts it’s second best January sales in the US market
January 2009 sales report has been posted today by Kia Motors America and results are nothing but a huge surprise!
While the rest of the automotive world posted high sales declines in the first month of the fiscal year, Kia managed to move 3,5 percent more vehicles from dealer’s showrooms compared to last year.
Surprising or not, the Korean second largest company also reported January 2009 sales have been it’s second best January sales since Kia entered the US market in October 1992!
January sales were led by Kia’s compact and mid-sized SUVs, the Sportage and Sorento, both posting significant increases over the same period last year, and the outgoing Spectra, which ended the month with almost 6,000 units sold.
Other Kia vehicles that also sold well in January was the 7-seat Sedona minivan with slight increase over the last year’s sales performance.
Kia dealers across the country sold 2,570 Sedonas in January. Pretty good!
Rio, Amanti, Rondo and Optima have seen a sales decrease compared to January 2008, while the full-sized Borrego is still waiting to reach it’s momentum.
Borrego continues to sell in the low 300’s, a number that is most probably, lower than Kia Motors America expected to be.
In conclusion, Kia has a great month behind and let’s hope the company can retain it’s momentum with the Soul and new Spectra/Forte sedan in the coming months.
For January ’09 KIA Canada is up 0.9%, while the Canadian market overall is down 25.3%. Some surprises Honda down 38.7% but Toyota up 0.3%; GM down 46.6%, Ford -14.2%, Chrysler – 33.7%, Mecedes +10.3%
Sweet!!! Cheetos for everyone!! Wait til the Soul hits the streets!!
This increase is caused by huge incentives. Kia bought this increase in sales with large rebates and huge dealer cash incentives. With 4k and 5k rebates and up to $3500 in dealer cash for dealers to use to entice customers, it was a great time for customers to buy a new Kia but at a cost of Kia.
The 4,000 2008 Optima rebate move all of the 2008 Optimas they had. They still have over 100 2008 Rondos though!
My favorite vehicle, the Sorento, the sales have gone through the roof!!! what’s happening here?? Are people beginning to see how good it really is??
Either that or the 5,000 dollar rebate.
Oh, not to mention, Kia has been marketing the shit out of the Sedona and Sorento. On some channels, there is a Kia commercial every other commercial it seems!
Our dealership is doing 30% off MSRP on all 2008 models, except for I think the one Amanti we have. We hardly ever move any Amantis, so there is usually only one on the lot at any given point. The ad you’ll see doesn’t list the Spectra (and 5) or Rio (and 5) but I’m pretty sure we still have some on the lot to sell at the 30% off price.
http://www.kiastore.com/ By the way, the blonde is my girlfriend. I wish. 😉
Keep in mind, the weak won means that Kia and Hyundai can offer rebates at a lower cost than other companies.
I wonder how long it will be till Hyundai’s Assurance program makes its way to Kia? It certainly would be cheaper in the long run than $5K rebates, even with the currency fluctuations.
Kia had the highest incentives of any manufacturer versus the purchase price of the vehicle in January:
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/email/headlines/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsLang=en&div=-1968869760&newsId=20090203006301
It’s nice to see the company doing well in these hard times!
Still, even with large incentives, the sales results for Kia Motors are very heartening in those nasty economic times, eh?
Large incentives make low payments that make customers want to buy. Besides, Hyundai doesn’t have as much of a loss because their vehicles have higher resale/trade in value. That’s why there is no “Kia assurance”
The best selling sedan, here in Australia, for the month of January was the Mazda 3?? This is a big switch from the traditional number one seller, the Holden Commodore (GM), which is a large car, which has been No1 for more years than I can remember now, it’s still in the top three, mind you.
So if the new Kia Cerato/Spectra/Forte can jump on this growing market trend towards a smaller vehicle here in Australia, Kia might do alright, but there’s a lot of competition in that class, with a heap of great cars and there is a great looking new Mazda 3 on the horizon.
that’s strange as the Mazda 3 was the top selling car in Canada for January, most of the time its the Honda Civic and sometimes the Corolla, but this is the first time since I’ve been tracking it (January ’07)
I might add as well that was achieved here in Oz, without flogging it too much on TV or the media. Just a good car I guess and customers realize that after they have done their research on different vehicles that are on their short list.
My daughter has a 2006, current shape Mazda 3 SP23 (it’s called here) and it’s a good looking vehicle that goes well and reasonably economical for a 2.3 litre engine.