Kia surprised by scale of growth in Australia

Kia Australia’s massive sales growth over the past few years, which has seen it become our market’s ninth-selling brand overall, has taken even company management by surprise.

The Korean brand was up 35 per cent to 12,873 units over the first quarter of 2017, pushing it past Subaru and into ninth spot. The growth trajectory is putting the company at levels it did not plan to be at until about 2019/20.

This 25 per cent Q1 growth is over 2016, a year where the company grew 26.5 per cent to record highs, in turn over a record 2015 where it leapt up by a comparatively modest 20.5 per cent – admittedly off an underperforming base.

“I don’t think anyone expects to be up 20 per cent, 26 per cent and 34 per cent,” Kia Australia COO – and ex Hyundai Australia executive – Damien Meredith said this week. 

“I said when I first joined I’d be happy if we were at 50,000 units [annually] by 2019 0r 2020. We’ll probably get there this year.” The company’s full-year record set last year was 42,668 units. 

Growth this year is coming from the Cerato, which is belying a drop in passenger car sales thanks to bargain-basement pricing, which Kia is able to offset by selling high-ratio numbers of top-end Sorentos and Carnivals.

Cerato sales over Q1 grew 94 per cent to 4654 units. Other strong performers were Sportage (3385, up 30.5 per cent), Sorento (1146, up 17 per cent) and Soul (73 units, up almost four-fold). The new Picanto is also averaging about 270 units a month, all incremental.

With the new Rio rolling out, a new Picanto due within months, and the much-hyped Stinger GT – a 272kW rear-drive sports sedan – due in September, there’s plenty of fresh metal to keep the dealers and buyers engaged.

Beyond this, the new Cerato is expected during 2018 and will bring a new circa-150kW turbo variant with dual-clutch gearbox.

Meredith also said the addition of an industry topping seven-year warranty was vital, because it gave people “permission to buy” a brand they may have been on the fence about.

There does appear to be a ceiling for Kia, however, given its small SUV to rival to the Mazda CX-3, Honda HR-V and Hyundai’s imminent Kona is not expected until 2019, oddly.

It also has no clear timeline for a van and ute range, despite lobbying its Korean parent hard.

	TOP 25 BRANDS JAN-MARCH
BRAND	SALES	GROWTH
Toyota	48,514	Up 4.3 per cent
Mazda	30,462	Even
Hyundai	22,406	Down 8.2 per cent
Holden	20,119	Down 10.7 per cent
Ford	18,433	Down 1.1 per cent
Mitsubishi	18,416	Up 1.1 per cent
Nissan	15,057	Down 13.3 per cent
Volkswagen	13,735	Down 5.8 per cent
Kia	12,873	Up 34.8 per cent
Subaru	12,761	Up 8.4 per cent
Mercedes–Benz	10,400	Up 3.3 per cent
Honda	9772	Up 1.8 per cent
BMW	6330	Down 15.4 per cent
Audi	5244	Down 14.9 per cent
Suzuki	4878	Down 5.1 per cent
Isuzu Ute	4495	Down 19.9 per cent
Land Rover	3948	Down 3.5 per cent
Renault	2619	Up 9.8 per cent
Lexus	2255	Up 3.2 per cent
Jeep	1925	Down 49.2 per cent
Porsche	1442	Up 1.8 per cent
Volvo Car	1175	Down 20.8 per cent
Skoda	1097	Up 3.2 per cent
Mini	893	Down 1.7 per cent
Jaguar	820	Up 20.6 per cent

 

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