Korean giant Kia has upgraded its cars and fashioned new designs in the past few years giving the marque a real boost in the business and retail markets.
The maker is hoping that the Cee’d and pro-cee’d will turn the brand around.
According to the maker it’s at last starting to become an aspirational brand as it’s now product and quality led but at a competitve price.
Paul Philpott, managing director of Kia UK explained: We have changed our philosophy from supply push to demand pull and moved our reliance on fleet business to retail growth. Sales were down 18 per cent at the end of last year but we have taken out some 8,000 fleet sales.”
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Fleet sales were down 37 per cent, but retail was up eight per cent.
Philpott continued: “While that may not be particularly strong, I am encouraged by the second half of 2007 numbers which showed retail sales up 23 per cent. In fact retail sales have risen every month since last May so the trend is good.”
Kia expects to sell 32,250 vehicles  with the fleet sector accounting for 11,150 cars.
The marque expects the three door pro-cee’d to account for 2,000 sales in its first yearwith the five door model taking the lion’s share at just over 7,000.
Philpott added: “Going forward I want to see the retail/fleet split closer to 60/40 – we don’t want to lose fleet completely because it is good business but we want to be retail led.”
Simon McBride