Kia global sales rise 5.9% in 2014

Kia Motors Corporation has announced its 2014 full-year global sales figures made up of export sales, domestic sales and sales from overseas plants for passenger cars, recreational vehicles (RVs) and commercial vehicles, recording a total of 2,907,757 units sold. This figure represents a 5.9 percent cumulative year-on-year increase compared to 2013.

In 2014, Kia posted a year-on-year sales increase in China, North America, general markets and Korea of 17.5 percent (678,196), 7.0 percent (650,241), 2.1 percent (524,345) and 1.6 percent (465,200), respectively. Meanwhile, 2014 sales in Europe experienced a slight drop of 0.1 percent (589,775).

For the month of December 2014, global sales grew by 20.7 percent with all major regions experiencing year-on-year growth. Sales in China, North America, Korea, general markets and Europe grew by 35.9 percent (69,111), 34.2 percent (48,939), 17.1 percent (48,018), 12.0 percent (41,349) and 2.4 percent (44,975), respectively in December.

Kia’s best-selling model in overseas markets during 2014 was the B-segment Rio (known as ‘K2’ in China) with 491,613 units. The C-segment Cerato (known as ‘Forte’ or ‘K3’ in some markets) was the second best seller with 432,420 units delivered, while the Sportage compact CUV, Optima D-segment sedan and Soul urban crossover followed with 416,856, 300,685 and 194,572 units sold, respectively.

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.