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Kia cee’d becomes the best-seller in Finland and the Czech Republic
Further confirmation that the popular Kia cee´d is becoming a major attraction for C-segment family car buyers in Europe comes with news that this model has claimed the No1 sales spot in two countries during October.
In the Czech Republic, Kia cee´d was the best-selling imported car (the top non-Skoda) for the first time in October and was the top-selling imported C-segment car for the second time, having also achieved this accolade in April.
Kia´s total sales in October jumped 63% as the brand claimed a 3.47% market share. Over the first 10 months of 2007, Kia sales have climbed 67% enabling the brand to claim a Top 10 position, closely following Opel and beating Fiat.
In Finland, the Kia cee´d leapt up the sales charts in October and claimed the No1 spot in its class, beating the Golf, Octavia, Auris and Focus, and capturing a 14.9% share of the C-segment. Kia´s overall market share jumped by 50% to 7.2% during this month.
“We have made a huge effort to ensure that the Kia cee´d family is exceptionally well styled, well built, keenly priced and has immense appeal for many different groups of European consumers. Positive media reports and a growing number of delighted cee´d owners are accelerating demand and sales as the year unfolds,” commented Mr Jean-Charles Lievens, Senior Vice President Kia Motors Europe.
“Since its launch in Europe in December 2006, orders for more than 100,000 cee´d five-door models have been received, and this model, with its 5-Star EuroNCAP safety rating, has played a key role in raising Kia brand awareness as well as our sales volumes.”
The Kia cee´d family of cars – five-door hatchback, five-door wagon and three-door pro_cee´d – are built at Kia Motors´ first-ever vehicle manufacturing facility in Europe – the €1 billion operation at Zilina in Slovakia.
With a highly-trained staff of 2,600 employees working two shifts, Zilina is now building four different Kia models – three cee´d variants and the 2008 Sportage compact SUV range – on the same assembly lines.
Thanks to the durability and quality of Kia cars manufactured in Slovakia, all Kia cee´d and Kia Sportage models sold in Europe now come with the unique Kia 7-Year/150,000km Warranty.
This is resembling on Toyota’s success in Europe. They really started to grow after they built a first European factory in France and then developed Yaris hatchback especially for Europeans. Kia is acting the same way and they are succeeding! Cee’d just keeps selling and that is good for Kia!
Yeah, I just hope Kia doesn’t fizzle out, fire all of their good designers and make their cars to be worthless like Toyota has. Good luck Kia!!
No, wait, Ford did that, not Toyota. Sorry.
They won’t do that! I mean, who would fire Peter Schreyer, one of the best deigner in the world??I wouldn’t.
They started a long-term process of designing cars with character and P. Schreyer is leading the team to do that.
I know Kia wouldn’t, but Ford and Toyota never had Pete. (I have been talking to him via his email[pschreyer@kia.co.kr] he prefers Pete) He is what is gonna make Kia number one around the world. He says that Kia has treated him like gold compared to Audi, VW, and Lamborghini. All you ever hear in Michigan(former autombile capital of the world) is how Ford, GM, and Chrysler are losing sales and customers and are at all time lows, while Kia is up 3,246% since 1994! Kia is going to rock the world thanks to Pete.
Not sure on my math, might want to check it.
It’s great to hear that Kia people are so opened to talk to everyone! Where did you get his mail bytheway?;)
I hope your words become gold and Kia becomes a tier one carmaker and gets the image the company is striving for. And that people will actually want to own Kia cars because they’re cool to drive and not because they’re affordable and have great warranty!
Kia has some of the easiest emails to decipher! the email addresses are always: First letter of first name; last name;@; either kia.co.kr or kiausa.com depending on where the official is located. I sure hope Kia will be on top in the near future too!