Kia Motors Posts 15.5% Global Sales Growth in May

Kia Motors Corporation has announced its global sales figures (export sales, domestic sales and sales from overseas plants) for passenger cars, recreational vehicles (RVs) and commercial vehicles for May 2012, recording a total of 240,000 units sold. This figure represents a year-on-year increase of 15.5%.

In May, Kia posted year-on-year sales increases in all regions of the world – 28.3% in Europe* (52,794 units sold); 21.1% in China (40,723 units sold); 14.0% in general markets* (45,502 units sold); 9.2% North America (60,231 units sold); and 7.2% in (40,750 units sold) in Kia’s home market of Korea.

Cumulatively through the first five months of 2012, Kia’s global sales have increased by 11.9% year-on-year to reach 1,106,041 units. Europe, North America and China have experienced the highest cumulative gains to date in 2012 of 25.8% (231,046 units sold), 18.9% (268,897 units sold), and 16.7% (197,991 units sold), respectively.

Kia’s best selling model in overseas markets for the month of May was the B-segment Rio (known as ‘K2’ in China) with 42,447 units sold. The Sportage compact CUV was the second best seller with 32,262 units delivered, while the C-segment Cerato (known as ‘Forte’ in some markets), D-segment Optima sedan and Sorento mid-size CUV followed with 30,695, 23,494, and 19,534 units sold, respectively.

Tae-Hyun (Thomas) Oh, Executive Vice President & COO of Kia Motors Corporation, said, “Having surpassed the 1 millionth annual global sales mark faster than ever before in our history, we are well on track to meet our full-year sales target of 2.7 million units. Our performance has been especially encouraging in Europe and we expect the recent introduction of the all-new cee’d as well as our sponsorship of this month’s EURO 2012 football championships to add further momentum to the Kia brand in our fastest growing region of 2012.”