Kia completes the replacement of its entire European product line-up at Paris on the back of what will be record September sales in the UK.
By the end of this month the Korean brand will have sold 11,500 cars in Britain, a figure bettered only by the 12,100 in the March when the post-banking crisis scrappage scheme was in full swing. That tally will help push Kia on to a record 65,000 by the end of the year.
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And the company’s UK managing director, Michael Cole, is confident of taking this up to 70,000 in 2013 with the help of more fleet sales and the two newcomers shown in Paris.
Kia is replacing the pro_cee’d, the three-door version of its European-built compact hatchback, and the Carens, its seven-seat mid-sized MPV. The Carens has traditionally been something of the black sheep of the range, with sales of only 500 a year in the UK, but Cole is confident of increasing this seven-fold with the new car.
He also believes the stylish and sporty new pro_cee’d will have a halo effect on the entire Kia family, particularly when the 204bhp performance model arrives later next year.
Kia has now replaced its entire range in around three years, one reason for its extraordinary current sales success. But the speed of the model turnaround also brings challenges, said UK chairman and CEO, Paul Philpott.
“The challenge for us is how we maintain our momentum with no all-new product coming along in the next few years,’ he said in Paris. “There’ll be no new B-segment car (Rio) until 2017, no new A-segment car (Picanto) until 2016 and no new Sportage until 2016. There will be mid-term updates, of course, but nothing all new.”
The big success story has been the Sportage crossover, which is exceeeding all sales expectations and could do even better if Cole could secure more supply. The UK will sell around 12,000 in 2012 but Cole believes this could reach 14,000 if more cars were available.
He is especially pleased that the company is not over-reliant on any one model for its sales boom. Four models – the Picanto, Rio, cee’d and Sportage – will all clock up over 2,000 sales in the UK this month.
