Kia Motors posts 16.3% global sales growth in September

SEOUL--(Korea Newswire)--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 September 2011, recording a total of 217,736 units sold. This figure represents a year-on-year increase of 16.3%.

In September, Kia posted strong double digit year-on-year sales increases in many of its major sales regions – 45.9% in China (46,170 units sold), 20.6% in North America (41,997 units sold) and 20.6% in Europe* (47,256 units sold). September sales in Kia’s home market of Korea grew year-on-year by 4.4% (41,952 units sold) while sales in general markets* declined by 2.6% (40,361 units sold).

Cumulatively, through the first nine months of 2011, Kia’s global sales have increased by 18.2% year-on-year to reach 1,827,622 units. North America has experienced the highest gain to date in 2011 of 35.0% (419,075 units sold) while the remaining regions have all shown strong cumulative year-on-year sales increases: 27.1% in China (321,777 units sold), 18.9% in Europe (349,778 units sold), 9.6% in general markets (369,378 units sold) and 4.4% in Korea (367,614 units sold).

Kia’s best selling model in overseas markets for the month of September was the C-segment Cerato (known as ‘Forte’ in some markets) with 32,887 units sold. The Sportage compact CUV was the second best seller with 29,571 units delivered, while the B-segment Rio, Sorento mid-size CUV and Soul urban crossover vehicle followed with 26,392, 19,644 and 14,742 units sold, respectively.

Editor’s notes:

* ‘General markets’ include the regions of Central and South America, the Caribbean, Asia (excluding China and Korea), the Pacific, Middle East and Africa. ‘Europe’ includes both Western and Eastern European markets.

Related video, stills and other press material are available at Kia Motors’ Multimedia Library (http://kia.synapticdigital.com), powered by Synaptic Digital. Content is available in HD, broadcast, and streaming-quality formats, including PAL and NTSC, and can be downloaded utilizing the industry’s fastest download technology

Website: http://www.kia.co.kr

This is a news release distributed by Korea Newswire on behalf of this company.