Hyundai Motor Group Sales Forecast to Hit 8-year Low

South Korean automakers’ domestic sales and exports in November fell 2.47 percent and 1.76 percent respectively from a year earlier.

South Korean automakers’ domestic sales and exports for last month fell 2.47 percent and 1.76 percent from a year earlier, respectively. Hyundai Motor Group is likely to fail to meet its annual sales target for the fifth consecutive year and GM Korea is likely to come in last among the five South Korean automakers for the first time since its inception in 2002.

Hyundai Motor Group announced on Dec. 2 that Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp. respectively sold 4,024,628 and 2,543,237 cars, down 3.6 percent and 1.1 percent year on year, from January to November this year. Early this year, the companies said that they would sell 4.68 million and 2.92 million cars this year.
 

Hyundai Motor Group’s annual sales volume reached 8,012,995 units in 2015 but remained below eight million units in each of the following three years. Besides, the group’s sales volume is forecast to reach an eight-year low this year.

GM Korea’s domestic sales volume from January to November this year, in the meantime, totaled 67,651 units with a year-on-year decline of 18.4 percent. During the same period, SsangYong and Renault Samsung sold 97,215 and 76,879 cars, respectively.

GM Korea came in last in monthly domestic sales eight times during the period. It ranked fourth last year by beating Renault Samsung by a margin of approximately 3,000 units, but Renault Samsung has sold approximately 9,000 more cars this year. GM Korea came in fourth in 2003, 2009 and 2010 but has never been at the bottom since its foundation in 2002.

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