Kia’s prospects of continuing its meteoric sales growth in its leading market, America, are going to be stifled this year by lack of spare capacity.
“This will be a year of moderate growth,” admitted Michael Sprague, the company’s North American vice-president for marketing. “Globally we a now at capacity. All markets are clamouring for more.”
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Kia has just enjoyed an 18th successive year of increased sales in the US, finishing 2012 with a best-ever total of 557,000 for a market share of 3.85%. That was a 14% increase on sales of just under 485,500 in 2011.
The Hyundai Motor group unit had three models which sold more than 100,000 units in 2012 – the Optima, Sorento and Soul. Two of those cars, the Optima and Sorento, are made at Kia’s US plant in West Point, Georgia which, despite operating three shifts, has reached its capacity of 360,000 units.
A redesigned Soul and refreshed Sorento are the centrepieces of the company’s stand at the New York show.
Sprague believes the Optima would be able to challenge the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord for market leadership in the US if it was not hamstrung by supply, even though it is currently outsold by them at the rate of more than two to one.
“We have a compelling product,” he said. “The first model was revealed here at the New York show in 2010 and people were just blown away. It has done a fantastic job for us.”
The first-generation Soul has also far exceeded expectations. Annual sales of around 100,000 in America are two-and-a-half times Kia’s initial forecasts. “We thought 40,000 would be its limit,” says Sprague, “but it has connected with consumers in a way we never expected. It just blew us all away.”
Its three major competitors – the Scion XB, Nissan Cube and Honda Element – have either disappeared or are about to be withdrawn from sale and it now competes with compact cars like the Ford Focus, said Sprague, especially as the new version is slightly larger and roomier than the original.
“Soul offers everything a compact car does. People are buying it on style but it also has a lot of functionality,” he said. “It has 360-degree visibility, good ingress and egress, 14 storage compartments and is packaged really well.”
