Kia Motors Posts 15.0% Global Sales Growth in July

SYDNEY – Aug 10, 2011: Kia Motors Corporation announced today its global sales figures (export sales, domestic sales and sales from overseas plants) for passenger cars, recreational vehicles (RVs) and commercial vehicles for July 2011, recording a total of 208,074 units sold. This figure represents a year-on-year increase of 15.0%.

In July, Kia posted year-on-year sales increases in all of its overseas regions – 45.2% in China (34,419 units sold), 26.6% in Europe (40,840 units sold), 26.3% in North America (51,887 units sold), and 3.7% in general markets (40,222 units sold), while sales in the home market of Korea declined by 9.7% (40,706 units sold).

Cumulatively, through the first seven months of 2011, Kia’s global sales have increased by 19.1% year-on-year to reach 1,412,191 units. North America has experienced the highest gain to date in 2011 of 38.9% (330,086 units sold) while the remaining regions have all shown strong cumulative year-on-year sales increases: 22.2% in China (237,859 units sold), 18.5% in Europe (268,970 units sold), 13.1% in general markets (286,225 units sold) and 5.8% in Korea (289,051 units sold).

Kia’s best selling model in overseas markets for the month of July was the C-segment Cerato (known as ‘Forte’ in some markets) with 34,452 units sold. The Sportage compact CUV was the second best seller with 28,079 units delivered, while the Sorento mid-size CUV, B-segment Rio and Soul urban crossover vehicle followed with 21,408, 19,403 and 16,102 units sold, respectively.