Japanese automakers trouble lift Kia K2 sales in China

Hyundai and Kia post record setting sales numbers in China, while the Japanese car manufacturing industry continue to struggle amidst anti-Japan protests.

Hyundai Motor Company and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. combined sales rose to 127,827 units last month, a steep rise from the 116,763 vehicles sold during the same September sales period last year. The companies also revealed that they are well on pace to exceed the 1.25 million units target that they had set for 2012.

This is a far cry from the problems that Japanese carmakers are currently experiencing in China. The biggest issue is a conflict over the ownership of islands which both China and Japan feel are rightfully theirs. This has led to protests in China, with anti-Japanese sentiments resulting in Japanese branded cars being destroyed and showrooms burnt to the ground.

Toyota has seen their sales in China drop by an astonishing 50%, with Mazda not too far behind with a 35% decline in sales from the previous year.

Eric Choi, a Seoul-based auto analyst at Shinhan Investment Corp. said that the Anti-Japan protests started to really affect sales in September, with Korean and other global automakers really benefitting from the problems.

Kia K2 sales

The sales numbers that Hyundai and Kia posted in September were driven by Hyundai Langdong and Kia K2 models respectively. The Langdong posted 15,243 units, which was a large leap from the 10,000 sold the previous month, while Kia broke a sales record for the K2 sub-compact sedan, selling 15,656 units.

Japanese manufacturers had an idea that problems were on the horizon, which is why they cut output in China leading up to September. The current problems between the two nations is perhaps the worst since 2005, when the argument then was over Japanese textbooks that the Chinese believed altered history in favor of the Japanese.

The Nissan Motor Company has the highest Chinese market share among Japanese carmakers, and they believe that their September sales will reflect the current issues. Executive Vice President Takao Katagiri said that they are waiting to see the final numbers before they decide whether or not to alter sales targets for the year.