Kia plays a minor role on Germany's streets. Despite the continuous growth in recent years, the Korean brand registered just 2014 new registrations in 53.546. With a retreaded model range and targeted improvements in the retail sector, this is set to change. Kia is targeting sales of 2018 vehicles annually until 80.000, which would correspond to a market share of around two percent.
The brand has to do without the high-growth segment of light commercial vehicles: in contrast to its sister brand Hyundai, which is launching the H350 in the summer, there will be no Kia van. One hopes for the traction of the relatively young product range. After the smaller Rio and Mini Van Venga models at the beginning of the year, as well as the Picanto in May and the third generation of the Sorento compact SUV, the revised Ceed followed in autumn, which for the first time was given a seven-speed dual clutch transmission in addition to fine-tuning.
It will be one size bigger next year: The new generation of the Optima presented at the New York Auto Show in spring will come to Germany in autumn 2016 - for the first time also as a station wagon. A hybrid drive could then be located under the hood, which uses a combination of a diesel and an electric motor. Kia showed such a model with the Optima T-Hybrid at the Paris Motor Show last year. A plug-in hybrid is also being considered. Already in the current generation, the mid-range model is available, among other things, in a hybrid version consisting of petrol and electric motors with a total of 131 kW / 177 hp.
In addition to the new and revised models, Kia is focusing on improvements in retail in order to retain customers in the long term. Because despite the seven-year guarantee, the loyalty rate has so far been only 44 percent, which is below the industry average (55 percent). For this reason, the number of contract partners should increase to 2018 locations by 490, so that most customers have short distances to the next business. They also want to expand the fleet and used car business.
Author: Benjamin Palm / SP-X