Korean car brand Kia is bucking the downward trend in the UK car market by achieving record sales on British soil and the company’s managing director on these shores believes they can sell even more.
After another strong month of sales in August, Kia Motors UK managing director Paul Philpott is projecting a record year of sales, which is great news for the brand in a time of uncertainty for the motoring industry in general.
The Kia boss was speaking as the company made the international launch of the new Xceed crossover, which is predicted to make up 50% of Ceed sales in the UK in 2020.
“This year we’ll finish with around 97,000 sales, which is our best year ever and up 2% in a market down by 3 or 4%.
“I’d love to achieve 100,000 sales but we have a long term plan without a deadline on it. I think we can get to 120,000 in the UK without materially changing our strategy.
“Beyond that you need to become a different scale player in the fleet market. That would be dictated by supply and capacity.
“We’ve shared that plan with our dealers.”
According to the latest figures published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, new registrations for Kia in the month of August were up 2.2 per cent, the great sales news comes at a time when they have been voted Franchise Partner of the Year winner, scoring 9.1 out of 10, in joint first place with Lexus.