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Kia Motors Australia has finished the first half of 2011 with healthy market share and positive sales growth in a market, which reported a 6.6% decrease in sales over the same period.

According to VFACTS results released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries today, the 12,836 new Kia vehicle sales for the first six months provided the company with 2.8% of total market share and a 3.3% increase in year to date sales.

In the passenger vehicle segment Kia held steady with a six month, 0.6% increase in a segment that experienced an 8.5% decline up to June 30.

Leading the charge for Kia was the Cerato with the all new hatch and sedan combining to produce a 65.6% increase in sales compared to the first six months of 2010.

Kia dominated ‘People Movers Under $55,000’ with Carnival representing 33% of the segment’s share while Rondo sales were up 22.1% for the year so far.

“We set a relatively ambitious business plan for 2011 and after the first six months everything is going according to plan,” said Kia Motors Australia Chief Operating Officer Tony Barlow.

“We anticipate much of the same for the second half with the exception of a Rio run-out making way for an all new 5-door hatchback which is scheduled to be unveiled late in the third quarter.”

In the competitive SUV sector better supply and continued customer support of Kia’s compact soft-roader, Sportage, saw it finish the first half of 2011 up 26.3%. The year to date figure was bolstered by a healthy June, which was 60.9% better than the same month last year.

Sorento’s sales growth of 1.9% for the first half helped Kia return sales growth of 15.3% in the SUV category, which reported a 12.5% reduction.

Kia Motors Australia and internationally-lauded driver training organisation, Motorvation, have strengthened and expanded their co-operative determination to provide young Australian drivers with the best possible start to a safe driving experience.

Through Kia Young Drivers (KYDz) the program has been taken to select Victorian school students for the past two years, introducing learner-age and P-Plate drivers to a concept of a safe and sensible life behind the wheel.

This year through an increase in sponsorship support, an adoption of highly-sophisticated simulator teaching technology and a change of corporate name the young driver program will reach more than 4000 young drivers in Victoria and NSW under the Kia Motorvation banner.

The Mobile Training Centre will bring a pair of high-technology simulators _ complete with realistic hydraulic movement _ to a variety of centres and give the students “real world” experience through bespoke software scenarios.

“There is nothing more important than our children and their safety,” Kia Motors Australia President and CEO Mr M.K Kim said. “They are the future and to help best prepare them for a safe and rewarding time as motorists is something Kia Motors Australia is proud and pleased to be associated with.”

Through the support of the program’s sponsors the training is offered to schools at a below- cost rate to ensure the benefits are available to all education outlets that want to be involved.

“Motorvation is excited to be increasing our involvement with Kia Australia to improve safety outcomes for young drivers,” Kia Motorvation co-principal and chief instructor, Geoff Fickling, said. “It is wonderful to work with a company so committed to road safety, and making the program mobile increases our ability to reach more young people who could not otherwise access such world-class training.

“The Kia Motorvation Program is a life-changing, enjoyable, and essential one-day course for young drivers. It is suitable for pre-learners, learner drivers and P-Plate drivers – in fact, anyone aged between 16 and 25 years, the most risky time for any driver. It is not about learning how to drive nor how to become super skilled.”

During the course professional and entertaining presenters provide a combination of focussed discussion and hands-on driving, guiding young drivers to understand that driving is a function of two parts: their attitude or driving behaviour, and their action or skills and knowledge.

“Kia Motorvation does not seek to increase skills, but focuses mainly on achieving an awareness of thoughts about driving that are often unconscious, and using this new awareness to completely change driving behaviour, therefore removing dangerous behaviours or habits,” Mr Fickling said. “If you don’t understand how you think, you can’t change what you do.”

The course also provides tuition in how to avoid or deal with the ‘One-Percenters’ – emergency situations that can happen to even the most careful driver.

“Motorvate exists only to create safer drivers and reduce crash risk, and we welcome independent research of our training,” Mr Fickling said. “Extreme care is taken to avoid creating a false sense of overconfidence in young drivers during the hands-on driving component.

“In fact, the opposite is achieved for already over-confident drivers through a combination of teaching methodologies, evaluation, and experienced supervision.

“The Kia Motorvation program is not a defensive, advanced or learn-to-drive program. It is a unique system of understanding drivers’ attitude and action.”
www.motorvateyoungdrivers.com.au

(SEOUL) June 9, 2011 — Kia Motors Corporation announced today its global sales figures for passenger cars (export sales, domestic sales and sales from overseas plants), recreational vehicles (RVs) and commercial vehicles for May 2011, recording a total of 207,839 units sold.  This figure represents a year-on-year increase of 18.7%.

In May, Kia posted strong year-on-year sales increases in all of its overseas regions – 48.4% in North America (55,140 units sold), 28.8% in China (33,624 units sold), 19.2% in Europe* (41,139 units sold), and 7.0% in general markets* (39,924 units sold), while sales in the home market of Korea declined by 5.0% (38,012 units sold).

Cumulatively, through the first five months of 2011, Kia’s global sales have increased by 20.4% year-on-year to reach 988,011 units. North America has experienced the highest gain to date in 2011 of 42.4% (226,078 units sold) while the remaining regions have all shown strong cumulative double digit year-on-year sales increases: 17.6% in China (169,691 units sold), 15.9% in general markets (202,389 units sold), 15.5% in Europe (183,708 units sold) and 12.2% in Korea (206,145 units sold).

Kia’s best selling model in overseas markets for the month of May was the C-segment Cerato (known as ‘Forte’ in some markets) with 38,204 units sold.

The Sportage compact CUV was the second best seller with 28,563 units delivered, while the Sorento mid-size CUV, B-segment Rio and Soul urban crossover vehicle followed with 18,459, 18,191 and 17,812 units sold, respectively.

Senior Executive Vice President & COO of Kia Motors Corporation, Thomas Oh, said, “Nearing the midway point of 2011, we are encouraged to see that customers’ continued changing perceptions about the quality, styling, performance and value of Kia products in positive directions has resulted in sales growth outpacing our initial annual forecasts. We look forward to maintaining strong momentum in all of our strategic markets in the coming months, buoyed by the arrival of the next generation versions of our popular Picanto A-segment and Rio B-segment vehicles in Kia showrooms around the world.”

Kia Motors’ rapping and dancing hamsters earned the company one of the most prestigious advertising awards this week when the “This or That” campaign for the brand’s funky Soul urban passenger vehicle received the Gold Effie award in the “David v. Goliath” category at the 2011 North American Effie Awards ceremony in New York.

The annual Effie Awards (short for effective) presented by Effie Worldwide, Inc., highlights the most effective marketing communications efforts in the US each year, and the “David v. Goliath” category recognizes smaller, new or emerging brands that challenge category leaders.

The Kia Soul marketing initiative earned the Gold Effie after taking home a Silver Effie in 2010.

Together, the Soul’s popular “This or That” and the original “A New Way To Roll” campaigns contributed to significant increases in consumer awareness, perception and consideration of the Kia brand, and led to record sales of the urban passenger vehicle. In March, the Soul became the second Kia vehicle to sell more than 10,000 units in a single month, and after recording its best-ever monthly sales in May the Soul’s year-to-date sales are up 50.8 percent.

“The segment-busting Soul was the first vehicle introduced under Kia’s design-led transformation and was conceived to stand out in a sea of sameness with its refreshing design, outstanding functionality, variety of personalization options and tremendous value,” said Michael Sprague, Vice-President, marketing & communications, KMA. “The “This or That‟ campaign embodied the spirit of the Soul in a highly engaging way that really resonated with consumers and marketers alike – as evidenced by our second consecutive Effie award.”

In addition to the back-to-back Effie awards, the Soul spots have been named “Automotive Ad of the Year” for two consecutive years by The Nielsen Company.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW2mQ2n5EY8

Kia Motors Australia has entered the SPACE race with the completion of the first of a multi-million dollar corporate identity roll-out for the company’s 124 dealerships.

Thomson Kia, at Parramatta, is one of the first dealerships in the world to display the new Kia corporate look _ dubbed SPACE _ and will be joined this year by another 35 of KMAu’s key Metropolitan and Provincial dealerships. The extensive Australia-wide project is scheduled to be completed within four years.

“This is the first time we have had a completely integrated solution to the corporate identity of our dealerships and is just another reflection of Kia’s commitment to getting it right all across the board,” KMAu Chief Operating Officer, Tony Barlow, said.

“Our cars are winning widespread praise and the SPACE program is one more way of enhancing the new car experience for our growing family of customers.”

The SPACE concept encompasses a fresh restyling of the dealerships from the exterior fascia, the furniture and design of the showroom and customer welcome areas through to the service area.

Kia’s 124 dealerships across Australia cover metropolitan, provincial and country areas in a comprehensive service network.

There are 43 dealerships in NSW, 29 in Queensland, 25 in Victoria, 13 in Western Australia, 11 in South Australia, two in Tasmania and one in Darwin.

(SEOUL) March 15, 2011 – Kia Motors has been honored top honours within two categories at this year’s red dot product design competition within Germany.

The competition’s jury of respected international design consultants donated coveted red dot honors onto the Kia Sportage compact CUV and Kia Optima sedan.  The judges also remunerated a special tribute towards thenovel mid-size Kia Optima sedan, which alleged the 2011 red dot ‘best of the best’ title, the competition’s highest distinction, for which alone the greatest products within each category are eligible.

These latest victories fetch the number of Kia theories towards obtain a red dot honor towards four – with the Kia Venga successful within 2010 and the Kia Soul within 2009.  The Kia Optima and the novel Sportage also won 2011 iF product design honors last December.

“We are extremely proud of the red dot honors for the novel Kia Optima and Sportage. They are a greatappreciation of the steely profession of our international design teams and an promotion of our design strategy,” says Peter Schreyer, Chief Design Officer, Kia Motors Corporation.  “Naturally, we are notably thrilledapproximately the ‘best of the best’ honor for our novel sedan.  The Kia Optima exudes a bold, athletic energy and its stir of mere and fluid ropes and elegant but uncomplicated shapes draw the consideration of the eyewithin much the equivalent manner as a perfectly tailored, fine Italian suit.”

Senior Executive Vice-President & COO of Kia Motors Corporation, Thomas Oh, underlines the moral of design within terms of Kia’s market position. “These red dot design honors are a fantastic success for our brand.  They portray yet another independent promotion of the groundbreaking design and excellent importancefor finance Kia vehicles offer.  The special honor for the Kia Optima, detailed, shall certainly add momentumtowards the ongoing launch our novel sedan within the greatly competitive D-segment across the globe.”

Coveted worldwide: the red dot award

The red dot product design honors are one of the world’s principal design competitions and possess been heldvia the Design Centre of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany since 1955. This year, approximately 1700 manufacturers from 60 countries, working across a flavor of product sectors, competed for the honors with agross of 4433 product entries.

The judging was entrusted towards an international jury of greatly respected design consultants whomscrutinized and tested the products, and adjudicated them according towards criteria such as their grade ofconception, functionality, ergonomics, durability, environmental compatibility and intuitive handling.  Only products featuring the highest regular of design are eligible for the coveted red dot awards.

Kia Motors Australia finished 2010 just how it started the year: another strong month of sales growth across the passenger and SUV segments.

kia motors

During 2010 Kia sold 23848 vehicles, an increase of 22.9% compared to 2009 and more than double the Australian new car market increase of 10.5%.

“Kia passenger sales were up 2373 units or some 15% compared to 2009 while in the competitive SUV segment, our sales were up a very pleasing 63.1% which was well ahead of the segment growth of 25%,” said Kia Motors Australia COO, Mr Tony Barlow.

“In 2011 that trend will continue as new efficient engines are incorporated into sleeker Schreyer-designed Kia vehicles. Our local product development team will also continue to optimise all new Kia vehicles to ensure they meet the high standard expected by the discerning Australian driver.”

In the passenger segment, the introduction of the 5-door Cerato to the Kia family provided a healthy sales rush. December saw 328 Ceratos retailed, 62% more than December 2009. Total sales for the year were up by 33.4%.

Kia Carnival continued its domination of people movers under $40,000 with 277 December sales providing it with 30.9% market share in the category.

In the SUV segment a successful run-out campaign and then the arrival of the award-winning all-new Sportage saw the compact SUV’s figures increase by 60.8% compared to 2009 sales results.

In terms of a year-on-year increase in sales the accolades go to Kia Sorento which showed a 66.6% improvement throughout 2010.

The roll out of new and exciting vehicles continues for Kia throughout 2011 with its first launch, the all-new Optima, to take place at the Australian Tennis Open later this month.

With its sleek appearance, a brand new direct injection petrol engine and a long list of factory fitted extras the new Optima will appear on showroom floors towards the end of January.

“With the determination of Kia to produce ever more stylish and exciting cars we are confident that the positive change in customer perception of Kia as a brand will continue,” KMAu Presdent and CEO Mr M.K. Kim said.

“While Kia will never desert our promise of outstanding value, more and more we believe people will consider Kia as a purchase of desire rather than necessity.”