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Hyundai sales kept on climbing in January, though Kia slowed to just 27 units over its January 2009 sales numbers. Combined, Automotive News [sub] reckons they grew 13 percent to 52,626 units. Hit the jump for numbers.
Full Kia release available here. Problem spots? Kia’s Forte isn’t selling at Spectra levels, and the Rio sold the Soul. Also, Sportage, Sedona and Rondo needed replacing yesterday. Otherwise, the new Sorento looks to be doing well in the fast-growing compact CUV segment.
Hyundai presser available here. Sonata was the only nameplate down significantly last month, and with a new version about to hit the streets, that won’t last long.
17 Comments on “Hyundai January Sales Up 24 Percent, Kia Up 27 Units...”
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I’d say Veracruz sales dropping by nearly 2/3 is a pretty significant downward change as well.
What is up with Hyundai quoting Genesis Coupe and Genesis Sedan sales in the same figure? The two are wildly different cars in mission, price point, and actual hardware. I wonder how the split is sales-wise.
Hmm, wonder how many fleet sales are in these gains, funny that I don’t see any mention of that. Can’t imagine the wonderful Hyundai would buy market share the easy way….
/sarcasm
Some people think the fleet sales is some how a bad thing. I don’t know how many people get to drive in Hyundais. I would gladly drive the Sonata over any Chrysler rental fleets. Also, Hyundai/Kia are relatively small players in US even with a 7.x% combined US market share. Perception is still there. I don’t think people would complain about having Mercedes or BMW rental cars. The very reason “tooling designer” made the fleet statement is to either to belittle or use as a put down for these two brands.
Also, there are only so many fleet sales can a company do in a month or quarter. Would you rather have a company lose its money, market share, factory output, and employment because an attitude like “we don’t do fleets.”
Consequences for not reaching out to the fleet sales can be numerous. I see nothing wrong with the fleet sales. I bet GM, Chrysler, Mitsu, or any of these company wished they could bring their sales numbers just to be at even with the extra fleet sales. Instead, two companies in above mentioned filed for bankruptcies, and Mitsu is almost invisible. I guess their 0-0-0 event is going to make the company 0-0-0 company. I am also sure that most fleet operators would gladly trade their Camry to the Sonata, because their Camry is an useless assets unless they are fixed and rented. I personally think the whole Toyota thing is not a big deal but regardless, it’s a variable that’s yet to be quantified. I don’t even know what the Toyota Fiasco will do to Camry’s resale values.
These fleet sales do not hurt Hyundai resale values because it’s already pretty low as is… The current Hyundai pricing makes up for the low resale value. That is, the total cost of the purchase (ownership) of Camry versus Sonata is relatively the same.
Again, the fleet sales is a plus for Hyundai/Kia because they get people to drive their cars.
Let’s just be clear then…..the exact same practice is bad for GM but good for Hyundai? Also, don’t discount hyundais presence in the rental scene either, they are all over the place. Can’t imagine the poor/dead souls who bought one of these piles like what this has done to the residuals.
tooling designer +1
To “Tooling Designer.” Fleet sales were a bad thing, for the big three because they flooded fleets with heavily discounted cars. In particular, they all owned rental car companies and they offloaded their excess capacity on those rental car companies. The rental car companies would turn them around in a year and flood the market with cheap year old cars.
Disaster:
That is exactly what Hyundai is doing, dumping cars into fleets to perk-up sales and market share numbers.
I have found no evidence that Hyundai is “dumping” cars, at a loss, into fleets. Do you have a link that suggests that, or better, has real evidence of that? On the other hand, there was a lot of evidence of the Big 3 doing that when they owned their captive customer (the rental car companies.)
Hyundai does, however, appear to offer bigger incentives than the Japanese…which is something that the U.S. manufacturers were criticized for.
@rockit
How do you know that Hyundai is doing this “exactly?” Do you have the “exact” information? What is your reference for your “exact” claim?
@NulloModo
Genesis’ sale is down. Last year, the sales of Genesis was going at 1,500 to 2,000 a month. So, 1,000 combined unit isn’t either as stellar or as hoped. I don’t think 1,000 sales unit is that bad. Note that luxury cars in general do not generate high volume.
I think ES/3 Series/G do pretty well (5,000 units). Other than above mentioned models, every car in the luxury category may sell 500 cars per model. If you take out the G-series’ number from Infiniti, I think the combined sales volume probably is less than the Genesis’ number.
I think in a long term, if Hyundai Luxury Brands { Equus, Genesis Sedan, Genesis Coupe } can generate 2,000 units, I think Hyundai would be doing really well.
I think Hyundai will have a good year unless they have their own Toyotathon.
Kia’s Forte isn’t selling at Spectra levels, and the Rio sold the Soul.
Selling those cars? Not their forte!
I think Hyundai will continue to do well although it’s nice to see Ford getting it’s product together. I can see myself cross-shopping the Genesis coupe and the Mustang V6 when the new Mustang is released.
BTW whoever picked that dress to go with that car is a genius! The color combo makes both the dress and the girl POP!
Hyundai obviously is doing well, don’t know about Kia.
They both have 10 active models spread over about 25k sales a month.
Can this be maintained at low prices?
I can understand Veracruz sales taking a major dump, but what’s up with the 40% drop in Sonata sales?
The redesigned 2011 Sonata is coming out.
I thought the new 2011 Sonata won’t be in dealer showrooms until the end of 2010?
If so, I wouldn’t think that this would undermine 2010 Sonata sales so dramatically.
edit – Nevermind, it looks like the 2011 Sonata will be on sale in spring of this year.
Hyundai might have to really steeply discount remaining 2010s to move them.
The Sonata is due early this year…not at the end. In fact, they announced they were going to actually be able to push up production by a few weeks. On a side note, the 2010 Sonata isn’t a bad car and I bet you could get some really sweet deals on it.