Combined Market Share Inches up Despite Sales Drop
Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors announced on June 17 that their combined European sales fell 54.3 percent on year in May.
Hyundai Motor sold 21,397 unit in Europe in May, a 55.2 percent drop from a year ago, while Kia Motors sold 21,082 units, down 53.3 percent.
The European auto market as a whole shrank 57 percent in May with aggregate sales reaching 623,812 units. Not only Hyundai and Kia, but also other global players have been hit hard. Sales plunged 56.7 percent for Volkswagen Group, 55.2 percent for Daimler and 54.5 percent for Toyota. Honda and Jaguar Land Rover suffered an even steeper decline of 69.9 percent and 69.0 percent, respectively.
As a result, Hyundai and Kia's combined market share in Europe inched up to 6.8 percent in May from 6.4 percent a year earlier.
Hyundai's best-selling model was the Kona, which sold 5,557 units — 2,250 internal combustion engine vehicles, 1,880 electric vehicles and 1,427 hybrids. It was followed by the Tucson (3,607 units), the i20 (3,298 units) and the i30 (2,391 units). Among Kia's models, the European strategic car Ceed recorded the highest number of sales with 6,163 units, followed by the Sportage with 3,417 units, the Niro with 3,281 units and the Stonic with 2,753 units.