AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)10/05 Report--

On October 4th, Kia officially announced the latest global sales. According to the data, total global sales in Asia since September were 261322, up 4.8 per cent from a year earlier, with 44123 in South Korea's home market, up 11 per cent and 216568 in overseas markets, up 3.6 per cent from a year earlier.

From the above data analysis, whether in global sales, South Korea's home market or overseas markets, sales increased in September compared with the same period last year, while Kia's global sales also hit record highs in the first half of the year, but Kia is very lonely in the Chinese market.

Taking last year's sales as an example, data show that since 2022, Asian global sales have reached 2.9036 million vehicles, an increase of 4.6% over the same period last year, ranking seventh in the global auto brand sales list. However, Kia's sales performance in the Chinese market is a different story. According to the insurance figures, Asia's sales in China have been 94345 since 2022, down 40.5% from the same period last year, a far cry from the peak of 650000 vehicles sold in the Chinese market since 2016. To make matters more difficult, the decline in sales comes at the same time as Kia is in an insolvent dilemma in China.

As of December 31, 2022, Jiangsu Yueda Kia Automobile Co., Ltd., a Kia joint venture in China, had total liabilities of 2.4768 trillion won (13 billion yuan) and assets of 2.0809 trillion won (10.9 billion yuan), according to the financial report. According to this calculation, Jiangsu Yueda Kia has fallen into the dilemma of insolvency, with an asset-liability ratio of 119.3%.

It should be noted that although Kia's sales in the Chinese market are weak, Kia has repeatedly stressed that it will not give up the Chinese market. During the 2023 Shanghai Auto Show, Yang Honghai, Chief operating Officer (COO) of Kia China, made it clear that Kia's development in China has indeed encountered challenges in the past few years, but Kia's determination to dig deep into the Chinese market will not waver, and Kia is pooling global resources to increase investment in the Chinese market. Since then, at the 15th China Automobile Blue Book Forum, Yang Honghai said in public that the technology accumulation, talent accumulation and globalization experience of joint venture car companies, including global profits, are far larger than those of local enterprises. Yang Honghai said bluntly: "I earned 2.1 billion US dollars globally in the first quarter of this year, and I can afford to post in the Chinese market. Do your local enterprises have the financial strength to play?" You burn to death first, I can wait to come in and grab the market later. Let the enemy test the wound first. I have money and technology in my pocket. I have not given up this market. It is also a strategy to come in and clean up you at the right time.

The Chinese market has become the world's largest single car consumer market, which may be one of the reasons why Kia is reluctant to give up the Chinese market. To this end, Kia tried to achieve anti-surpassing with the help of new energy vehicles.

In March this year, Kia unveiled China's new energy strategy. Less than half a year later, Kia unveiled two new pure trams. At the 2023 Chengdu Auto Show in August, Kia brought two pure electric models, the EV5 and EV6. Among them, the Kia EV6, which locates the high-energy pure electric sedan, went on sale at the auto show at the same time, with a price range of 28.28-419800 yuan. As the first electric car based on the Kia E-GMP platform, Kia EV6 offers both the long-range version of the 77.4kWh and the standard life of the 58kWh, with a maximum power of 170hp and a maximum torque of 350Nm in the standard rear-drive version, and a maximum power of 235hp and a maximum torque of 605Nm in the quasi-endurance four-wheel drive version. The maximum power and torque of the EV6 long-range rear-drive model is 228km, 350Nm, 528km, 605Nm, 528km, 605Nm, 528km, 528km, 605Nm, 528km, 528km, 528km, 528km and 528km respectively.

Another model, Kia EV5, also opened for pre-sale at the Chengdu Auto Show, with a pre-sale price range of 159800-229800 yuan. the car is located in a pure electric medium-sized SUV and is the first domestic pure electric SUV in China. The power is equipped with a single front motor with a maximum power of 160kW and a maximum torque of 310Nm. The new car is expected to go on sale in November.

According to the plan, Kia's global sales target for 2030 is 4.3 million vehicles, of which 1.6 million are pure electric models. In the Chinese market, Kia will launch at least one pure electric vehicle a year based on the electrified global modular platform E-GMP from 2023; by 2027, it will launch a total of six EV models; and by 2030, it will achieve its target of annual sales of 180000 EV models, accounting for 40 per cent of sales.

In other words, new energy vehicles will be the stepping stone for Kia to open the Chinese market. At the launch of the new car, Yang Honghai said that the EV5 is a model tailor-made for the Chinese market and will become the strategic core of Kia's electrified transformation. He hopes to build EV5 into a popular Kia model starting from the successful listing of Kia in China. It should be noted that the car will not be available until November this year, and since 2023, the competition in the Chinese car market has become increasingly fierce, especially in the new energy vehicle market. Kia, which has a slow transformation of new energy, may face a lot of pressure in China.

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