Eight out of ten car buyers in South Korean market who bought themselves a new vehicle last month have bought either a Kia or a Hyundai model. October car-sales reports reveals that Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group acquired more than 80% of new car market.
Combined market share last month for Kia and Hyundai stood at 81,8 percent, which is the highest mark the company has ever achieved. It has also happened for the first time that Hyundai-Kia broke the 80% market share. Previous highest domestic market share was 79 percent, achieved in January this year, after Kia released facelifted Picanto and Mohave SUV on Korean market.
Thanks to a successful launch and great demand for Forte sedan and Soul urban crossover, Kia Motors increased it’s domestic sales by a third compared to last year, while Hyundai’s sales was stagnant! Also for the first time, Kia took more than 30% of domestic market share. The company has sold 33,609 vehicles in South Korea last month.
Related link: November ’09 Kia market share…
November 5th, 2008 at 12:41 am
well, thats nice…
November 5th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
A few months ago, I read a report about Kia wanting to acquire 30percent market share in South Korea. At that time, the company hold about 23% percent, and it was kind of har for me to believe this can happen, especially because other competitive automakers have unveiled many new cars.
The article said Kia’s officials were very confident and stated this can be done with some new models (Soul, Forte) and look at this report now, only three or four months later, the work has been done.
November 5th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
seems they had the forte in mind when they set that target…
November 5th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Well Hyundai is cranking out boring models (i20 and new Sonata for example) while Kia cranks out exciting models (Forte (who would buy i20 over a hot car like Forte), and Optima(still much more appealing than new Sonata))
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:00 am
This excludes any other manufacturors, sure they have 80% share of Koream OEMs but that doesn’t mean 8/10 poeple baught one of their cars in South Korea