Dramatic Rise For Kia Franchise In Sewells' Dealer Attitude Survey

WEYBRIDGE – August 29, 2008: The appeal of the Kia franchise has dramatically improved amongst dealers according to the latest Sewells’ Dealer Attitude Survey with the brand shooting up to a ranking 15 out of 34 marques.

Kia Motors (UK) Limited Managing Director Paul Philpott said the results showed that the focus on developing support for the network and building the strength of the brand in the market-place had paid off as the company rose from being one of the least appealing marques over the last two years.

He commented: “It is a strong endorsement of the hard work the entire company has put into ensuring the profitability and professionalism of the franchise over the last 18 months that we are now seen as one of the more attractive franchises and that dealers believe we have improved our levels of service to them in every area.

“Kia understands very clearly that without the enthusiasm and belief of our dealers we cannot hope to make the brand a success in the current challenging market conditions and I was particularly encouraged that dealers ranked us in the Top 10 for understanding the issues they faced AND acting on that,” he added.

Almost a quarter of the Kia network responded to the survey – one of the 10 best response rates from the 34 marques included in the survey – and the brand’s overall rating of 67.3 was ahead of the industry average and only 10 points behind the top rated brand. This was the best performance improvement of any brand in the survey and showed a more than eight point improvement over 2007.

Kia’s overall ranking of 15th was up from 30 in 2007 and 33 in 2006. Dealers rated Kia’s new vehicle targets 14th, its marketing programmes 13th, sales support 14th and warranty provision and operation 13th in the survey.

Business systems were ranked at 14th – up from 32nd, financial viability was up from 24th to 13th, customer satisfaction support up from 27th to 13th and communications up from 30th to 16th.

Kia’s relationship with dealers saw a massive jump from 31st to 10th overall – a 14 point improvement. Behind that score 60 per cent of dealers considered the relationship was improving and fewer than 20 per cent considered there were too many outlets in the network. Kia was ranked eighth for the fairness and relevance of its franchise standards.

Philpott added: “I was also heartened to see that more than 90 per cent of responding dealers say they intend to stay with the franchise and that more than 40 per cent would like to add further outlets to their business – that compares to just 10 per cent two years ago. And given the importance of profitability to any network and brand I was very happy to see that we were ranked sixth on new vehicle profitability this year.

“None of us at Kia will be complacent about these results because we know that it has taken a lot of hard work to make this journey and there is more we can do and I want to see this performance not just maintained but further improved next year.

“Our brand is nothing without a strong and motivated dealer network and continuing this trend is my number one priority if we are to achieve our ultimate goal of putting Kia firmly in the Top Ten of retail performers and hitting 50,000 sales. With the current market difficulties uppermost in the minds of dealers we have to look at these results as encouragement to work even harder,” he added.