Kia Motors Posts A 36 Per Cent Increase In April Global Sales

WEYBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM – May 12, 2010: Kia Motors Corporation today announced its global sales figures for April 2010 – passenger cars (export sales, domestic sales and sales from overseas plants), recreational vehicles (RVs) and commercial vehicles – recording a total of 174,505 vehicles sold. This figure represents a year-on-year increase of 36 per cent.

In April, Kia posted impressive double digit year-on-year sales increases in all sales regions: 62.9 per cent in general markets** (38,926 units sold), 54.6 per cent in China (28,082 units sold), 32.8 per cent in Korea (38,513 units sold), 24.1 per cent in Europe (33,891 units sold – of which 5,228 were in the United Kingdom) and 17.4 per cent in North America (35,093 units sold).

Kia’s global year-to-date sales in 2010 increased by 43.8 per cent year-on-year and reached 645,515 units. China experienced the highest level of growth during this period: sales up by 116.7 per cent with 118,213 vehicles sold.

The remaining regions have all showed strong year-on-year sales increases: 58.1 per cent in general markets** (137,345 units sold), 34.3 per cent in Europe (124,570 units sold - of which 25,901 were in the United Kingdom), 32.6 per cent in Korea (143,744 units sold) and 14.4 per cent in North America (121,643 units sold).

Hyoung-Keun Lee, President of Kia Motors Corporation, said, “Kia’s sales performance around the world so far in 2010 has been buoyed by strong customer demand for our smaller segment vehicles like our C-segment models and B-segment passenger cars, such as Rio, as well as our competitive recreational vehicles like the all-new Sorento.”

“With completely redesigned and reengineered models like the next generation Sportage and Magentis D-segment sedan due to go on sale later this year, we expect to see even more positive changes in consumer perceptions toward the Kia brand in the months ahead.”

Kia’s best selling model in overseas markets for the month of April was the C-segment Cerato (known as ‘Forte’ in some markets) with 34,987 units sold. The B-segment Rio and Sportage compact SUV compete for second with 17,393 and 16,366 units sold, respectively. The Sorento mid-size SUV comes in fourth with 13,732 units sold and the European C-segment cee’d rounds off the top five with 11,511 units sold.