Kia sells 128,272 vehicles in April globally with sales rising in eight European countries

Kia Motors announced it has sold 128.272 new vehicles in April 2009 with sales surging in China, South Korea and eight European countries. In the first four months of the fiscal year, Kia Motors sold 399.200 cars globally, slightly down from a year ago.

Despite a slight sales decrease in the first four months, Kia Motors’ spokesman recently revealed the company is confident it can sell as many new vehicles in 2009 as it did last year.

According to the statement Kia aims to sell 1.4 million units globally – that’s the sales number achieved in 2008. To achieve these numbers again, Kia will focus on smaller and more fuel efficient cars, such as Soul crossover, Forte, Rio, cee’d and Picanto whose demand has been on rise lately.

Kia sales by region

Kia Motors saw it’s biggest sales increase in China with sales increasing 40 percent to 18.169 units. The company has also posted growth in South Korean market and General markets with sales of 29.010 and 23.902 units respectively. Sales in the Middle East and Africa remained particularly strong in April 2009 with 15.462 units sold.

Thanks to impressive sales of cee’d hatchback and Soul crossover, Kia’s sales soared significantly in eight European countries. Countries seeing major improvements in April 2009 include Germany (+ 42 percent), Slovakia (+ 91 percent), Sweden (+ 18 percent), Austria (+ 51 percent), Poland and Czech Republic (+ 32 percent), France (+ 14 percent) and Portugal with 5 percent increase. Total sales in April were 20.500 units, raising Kia’s market share in the region once again.

Kia Sales by model

The best-selling Kia models in Europe included five-door cee’d hatchback together with it’s wagon and three-door variants. The cee’d family was followed by Picanto mini car and Rio (known as Pride in South Korea).

In addition, the exciting new Kia Soul urban crossover continues to attract thousands of new customers to the Kia brand and into dealer showrooms for the very first time.

So far in 2009, Kia’s best selling model in overseas markets has been Cerato (known as Spectra or Forte in some markets) with 65.727 units sold. Kia Rio comes in second with 45.932 units sold so far. The B-segment Rio is followed by Sportage SUV with 43.443 units sold. The European-built cee’d and the A-segment Picanto round up the top five with 38.579 and 27.349 units sold, respectively.