Korean carmaker sees Coronavirus pandemic weaken demand in major markets outside South Korea; hard-charging Seltos guns for top spot.
01 Apr 2020 | 7837 Views | By Mayank Dhingra
Kia Motors Corporation today announced its global sales results for March 2020, recording sales of a total of 226,960 units – a 6.4 percent year-on-year decrease compared to March 2019.
Its Sportage SUV emerged as the top-selling model globally, with sales of 28,977 units, followed by the Seltos with ...
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Kia Motors Corporation today announced its global sales results for March 2020, recording sales of a total of 226,960 units – a 6.4 percent year-on-year decrease compared to March 2019.
Its Sportage SUV emerged as the top-selling model globally, with sales of 28,977 units, followed by the Seltos with 27,806 units and the K3 (Forte) sedan with 21,194 units. With just 1,171 units separating, the Seltos, which is currently made in India and Korea, is hard on the heels of the Sportage.
In India too, the Kia Seltos has gone off to a flying start with the SUV garnering cumulative sales of 74,700 units in a shade over six months since its launch in August 2019 and emerging the top-selling UV in February. Moreover, with a daily sales average of around 483 units, the Seltos would have crossed the 75,000-unit mark in the first two days of March itself.
Sales in home market up 15.3%
The company’s sales at its home turf in Korea grew 15.3 percent to 51,008 units (March 2019: 44,233). This is the first time in 23 months that Kia has surpassed the 50,000-units per month in the Korean market since April 2018.
Recently launched models such as the K5 (Optima) sedan launched last December and the latest Sorento SUV (launched in February 2020, last month contributed to the sales increase according to the company.
Overseas sales by 11.2%
However, sales in overseas markets plummeted by a significant 11.2 percent to 175,952 units (March 2019: 198,137) due to the COVID-19 outbreak weakening demand in global markets. The company also temporarily shut-down some overseas plants to curb the COVID-19 global pandemic.
In response to the global health crisis, Kia says that it is continually closely monitoring the evolving situation in real-time and have taken specific actions to ensure that all possible measures are being put in place to minimise the spread of Covid-19.