February 2009 Kia global sales, expansion plans in Russia

By now, all of you reading this blog must have heard about the poor sales results major automakers have been achieving lately, while in contrast to others, Hyundai and Kia continue to perform quite well in global markets. They have both posted better than expected sales results in January and their February sales performance has not been bad either.

While Toyota, GM, Ford and others have been struggling to keep their sales numbers at the same level as last year, Hyundai and Kia have managed to increase their sales. Not everywhere, but at the most important car markets such as the US, China and general markets.

Two days ago, Kia published it’s monthly sales report revealing it’s  global sales for the February 2009. The company has sold 102.664 cars and SUVs worldwide with sales increasing 13.5 percent in South Korea (27.307 units sold), 3.3 percent in China (11.126 units sold) and 0.5 percent in North America with 24.294 units sold.

February sales were particularly strong in the Middle East where Kia sold 13.922 units, representing a 80+ percent increase compared to the same period of last year.

Kia’s best selling model in the first two months has been the Cerato (soon on sale under the Forte name in the US) with 29.128 units sold. The Cerato has been followed by Rio and Sportage SUV (20,034 and 20,024 units sold last month). The European built cee’d has been fourth (13.898), while Picanto mincar rounds out the top five selling models with 11.839 units sold.

In addition to the encouraging sales report, Kia also reported it’s Russian importer aims to increase the sales in Russia to 100.000 vehicles this year. Their goal is to increase the sales by 13 percent compared to last year and join Hyundai in the top five car brands in Russia.

Hyundai cars have been selling really good in the last few years and the company now ranks the second largest carmaker in Russia. Last year, Kia boosted Russian sales to 88.152 cars, according to the Moscow-based Association of European Business in the Russian Federation.

“Despite the current economic crisis, and its impact on the automotive industry, we saw strong growth in February, particularly in the general markets. We are encouraged by these figures and are confident that we are well positioned with our new Soul urban crossover and next-generation Cerato becoming fully available later this year.” told Hyoung-Keun Lee, Senior Executive Vice President and COO of the International Business Division at Kia Motors.

Find more sales reports at the www.kia-world.net!