Pride and joy
Kia is celebrating 25 years in the UK with record sales.
The Korean brand first started trading here in 1991 offering deposits from £1.
You could only buy one model and just under 1,800 cars were sold that year – a figure that it now reaches on average every two weeks across its 188 strong dealer network.
Starting with just one model on sale in 1991 - the Kia Pride - the Kia range now covers nine segments with 12 cars on offer and with three engine types available in the UK – petrol, diesel and electric - this is soon to be expanded with the all-new petrol hybrid Niro going on sale next month.
With UK sales totalling 763,500 from 1991 to today, 44 per cent of the total has been in the last five years, highlighting the dramatic growth that the brand has seen in recent years.
Consumers have been attracted to the brand for its styling, quality and reliability as well as that industrytopping seven year warranty.
Commenting on Kia’s 25th UK anniversary, Paul Philpott, President and CEO, Kia Motors (UK) Ltd, said: “Kia has been on quite a journey in recent years.
Within Kia’s time in the UK we have grown from a relatively small importer to challenging the best and most established brands in the industry.”
“We have a fantastic, ever growing, range of cars and in 2016 and 2017 we will launch fourteen new and face-lifted cars. Kia are certainly not resting on its laurels for the next 25 years as we expand our sales and dealer network in the UK.”
The Picanto - Pride’s replacement – was the first car in the A-segment to offer a five-door model, launching a successful and quirky animated advert asking consumers to ‘Think about it’, something that consumers have taken to heart – the Picanto is the biggest selling Kia in the UK since its introduction in 2004 with over 156,000 sold to date.
The Sportage - now in its fourth generation has sold close to 140,000 and is Kia’s second best-selling model with 16,000 of those being sold since the new model launch in February.
Although it has been in the UK for just 25 years Kia is still a company of firsts – from the five-door Picanto, through to utilising the independent review company Reevoo so that customer can give unedited, uncensored feedback about its models and its dealerships – with over 20,000 reviews, 97 per cent of customers would chose Kia again.
Kia is now the fifth automotive group in the world and is present in over 170 countries.