Worldwide Kia sales soar 21,9 percent in March

Kia Motors announces its global sales figures for passenger cars, crossover and commercial vehicles for March 2011!

Kia today announced its global sales for the month of March 2011 totaling 216.219 units sold. The strong March sales represented a 21.9 percent improvement from the same month a year ago.

During the month of March 2011, Kia posted strong double digit year-on-year sales increases in all regions of the world: 49.573 vehicles sold in North America (+41.8 percent), 46.100 units sold in South Korea (+21.3 percent), 33.951 units sold in China (+17.9 percent) and  45.358 units sold in Europe.

Kia also sold well in general markets where the automaker sold 41.237 new vehicles (12.1 percent increase from a year ago).

Cumulatively, through the first three months of 2011, Kia’s global sales have increased by 20.0 percent year-on-year to reach 565.355 units. North America and general markets have experienced the highest gains to date in 2011 of 35.3 percent (117.087 units sold) and 21.1 percent (119.187 units sold), respectively.

The remaining regions have all showed strong cumulative double digit year-on-year sales increases: 19.4% in Korea (125,631 units sold), 12.6% in China (101,529 units sold) and 12.4% in Europe (101,921 units sold).

According to Kia, the carmaker’s top-selling vehicle overseas was the C-segment Cerato (sold as Forte in the USA and some other markets) with 35.907 units sold.  The 2011 Sportage compact crossover and Rio sub-compact car follow with 26.922 and 21.273 units sold, respectively.

The Sorento mid-size crossover vehicle comes in fourth with 18.195 units sold and the Soul urban crossover vehicle rounds out the top five with 17,140 units sold.

“March was another milestone month for Kia Motors as we celebrated our 10 millionth cumulative export. Meanwhile, the final sales figures for March are very encouraging – not only due to fact that all of our major sales regions experienced robust double digit growth, but also because we are seeing a very healthy balance in the distribution of sales among each of these regions,” said Thomas Oh, Senior Executive Vice President & COO of Kia Motors Corporation. [Source: Kia]