Kia Motors posts 22.7% global sales growth in October

The FINANCIAL — Kia Motors Corporation announced on November 15 its global sales figures for passenger cars (export sales, domestic sales and sales from overseas plants), recreational vehicles (RVs) and commercial vehicles for October 2010, recording a total of 182,288 units sold. 

This figure represents a year-on-year increase of 22.7%.

In October, Kia posted year-on-year sales increases in all regions of the world ? 36.8% in North America (35,687 units sold), 30.0% in general markets* (38,498 units sold), 25.0% in China (31,124 units sold), 19.8% in Korea (43,147 units sold) and 5.9% in Europe* (33,832 units sold).

"Cumulatively, through the first ten months of 2010, Kia’s global sales have increased by 29.4% year-on-year to reach 1,728,896 units. General markets and China have experienced the highest gains to date in 2010 of 54.2% (375,439 units sold) and 48.2% (284,243 units sold), respectively," Kia Motors informs.

The remaining regions have all showed strong cumulative double digit year-on-year sales increases: 20.7% in Korea (395,247 units sold), 20.4% in Europe (327,923 units sold) and 14.9% in North America (346,044 units sold). 

Kia’s best selling model in overseas markets for the month of October was the C-segment Cerato (known as ‘Forte’ in some markets) with 34,829 units sold.  The Sportage compact CUV and Sorento mid-size CUV follow with 20,635 and 16,517 units sold, respectively.  The B-segment Rio comes in fourth with 16,059 units sold and the Soul urban crossover vehicle rounds out the top five with 12,281 units sold.

Senior Executive Vice President & COO of Kia Motors Corporation, Thomas Oh, said, “On the heels of our recent announcement of all-time high net profit for the third quarter of 2010, we are encouraged to see our sales momentum in global markets remain strong as we head into the final couple months of 2010. The challenge we are tackling in the meantime is meeting the overwhelming demand for newly introduced models like the all-new Sportage and Optima which have received tremendous attention from the world’s media and consumers alike.”