South Korea’s Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group, has overtaken Ford to become the fourth largest global automotive manufacturer, according to the latest figures from the Automotive News Data Centre.
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Ford saw its sales fall by more than 30% from just over 3m in the first half of 2009 to 2.145m, 8,000 fewer than the Hyundai Automotive Group whose sales held steady in the first six months vs the same period a year ago.
Toyota remained number one despite sales falling 26% to 3.564m, just 12,000 ahead of General Motors which was down 21%. All the other top 10 carmakers had double-digit declines according to the Automotive News data except third-placed Volkswagen which saw sales fall 5.1% to 3.1m.
Just 10 years ago the newly-unified Hyundai Kia group was in 11th place overall, but rapid globalisation has seen the company expand building factories in several countries including Slovakia, the United States and China.
Manufacturing facilities have been geared-up to build products that are designed and engineered for local markets.
Global Sales – first half of 2009 | ||||
Manufacturer | H1 2009 | H1 2008 | % change | |
1 | Toyota | 3,564,105 | 4,815,442 | -26.0 |
2 | General Motors | 3,552,722 | 4,541,125 | -21.8 |
3 | Volkswagen | 3,100,300 | 3,265,200 | -5.1 |
4 | Hyundai-Kia | 2,153,000 | – | |
5 | Ford | 2,145,000 | 3,093,000 | -30.6 |
6 | PSA Peugeot-Citroen | 1,586,900 | 1,844,700 | -14.0 |
7 | Honda | 1,586,000 | 2,022,000 | -21.6 |
8 | Nissan | 1,545,976 | 2,013,611 | -23.2 |
9 | Suzuki | 1,152,000 | 1,283,000 | -10.2 |
10 | Renault | 1,106,989 | 1,326,164 | -16.5 |
Sources: Automotive News’ 2008 Global Data Book (Automotive News Data Center), Reuters (Hyundai-Kia)
