KIA draws in the punters
Car manufacturers have been reporting back on their January 2011 sales figures, naturally they will be comparing them against last January’s figures, unfortunately the result of this comparison is that this year’s 1st month sales look down. Kia Motors UK has reported that it sold 3,100 units last month (January) which is down 38%, which as suspected looks bad, but you have to remember that last year’s figures were heavily boosted by Scrappage qualifying sales. Kia did result on a positive increase on its retail-only sales which rose by a staggering 70%.
Michael Cole the Managing Director of Kia boasted that retail customers were not put off by the VAT increase, he said, “There had been a general expectation that retail customers might be dissuaded from buying new cars because of the increase in VAT – but that didn’t seem to be a factor for us and our dealers. There wasn’t a big rush in December to beat the VAT increase and we didn’t see a fall-off in demand in January.”
The Managing Director added that retail only sales increased from 886 in 2010 January to 1,505 this January, which is a great achievement for the young and dynamic Korean car manufacturer. He also reported that even though Kia’s overall volume had fallen compared to the year before they still achieved an excellent 2.4% of the market.
Michael Cole was in confident mood that with three all-new vehicle ranges – Kia Picanto, Rio and Optima – due to be launched in 2011 and the continued success of used Kia in St Albans he expects to hold on to or even beat the 2010 total volume despite predictions that the overall market will fall.
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