4wdOnline Manager (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 35
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 3:46 pm: |       |
Hyundai's Big Sales Turnaround
Hyundai increased vehicle sales to 42,510 passenger vehicles in Australia in 2004, a remarkable 37.5 per cent improvement over 2003 and one of the biggest trend turnarounds in the local car industry for some years.
Hyundai’s share of the total Australian vehicle market in 2004 rose to 4.5 per cent from 3.4 per cent in 2003, according to official car industry figures for December and the year 2004 released today by VFACTS.
Hyundai strengthened its grip on seventh place outright, stretching its lead from Honda and closing on Mazda to finish again as the top-selling pure passenger vehicle import brand (ie no commercial vehicles).
In passenger car sales, Hyundai overtook Mitsubishi to claim fifth place and increased its market share to 6.4 per cent from 4.7 per cent in 2003.
In the SUV segment, Hyundai moved up three places to ninth overtaking Jeep, Suzuki and Land Rover, reflecting the launch of the new Tucson model in August 2004, albeit with limited availability since.
The most significant model improvers for 2004 were Getz, up 42 per cent to finish second in the Light Car segment on 15,832 sales and Terracan 4WD, up 87.5 percent to 1785.
The results reflect the increased feature competitiveness of all models in the Hyundai range and an improvement in brand image following Hyundai’s change of marketing direction towards a more brand building emphasis.
In 2005, Hyundai is first out of the blocks with the launch of the Terracan CRDi Turbo-Diesel next week and an all new generation Sonata will follow later in the first half of the year. |
