Kia UK managing director Michael Cole has told just-auto that he expects the brand to grow sales in the UK car market in 2012, despite concerns over the strength of demand in the market as a whole.

“We are extremely confident in our product range, our strong value proposition and the greater presence and traction that the Kia brand is generating in both retail and fleet sectors of the UK car market,” he said.

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Cole said that Kia’s sales in the UK are projected at around 54,000 units this year and that he is hoping to grow sales to over 60,000 units in 2012.

He highlighted the Sportage and the now being launched Optima models as helping to raise the company’s profile in the fleet sector of the market. “We think we have the products now to really appeal to the fleet customer user-chooser,” he said.

“But we are of course foremost a retail brand and we are extremely focused on a very competitive value-for-money proposition as well as customer peace of mind (for example with seven-year warranty and ‘car 3’ special servicing packages available on the Picanto and Rio) allied to increasingly attractive and well-designed models that maximise our appeal to customers at a time when household budgets are generally under pressure.”

As far as the outlook for the UK car market in 2012 is concerned, Cole tempers caution despite some worsening of the news on the economy lately and talk of downgraded forecasts in the industry. “At the moment, we expect a market of around 1.9m units for 2012,” he says. “We are more or less in line with the SMMT’s current forecast. At 1.96m units that is probably ‘top end’ the way things are going, but 1.9m for next year seems like a reasonable number for now in our view.”

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