Kia dealers build corporate success
By Jamie White – Head of Communications
Following on from record sales figures in 2013, Kia dealers across the UK saw an increase in business and company car users.
Strong increases in contract hire, public sector and leasing business helped push corporate sales – excluding rental and Motability – for the Kia brand to new levels, delivering important commercial success for Kia’s 177 UK dealers.
An increase in Public Sector sales saw Kia’s performance in that sector rise from virtually zero in 2010 to more than 2,500 cars in 2013, while Kia Contract Hire numbers rocketed from 221 to 3,200 in the same period. The Sportage, cee’d and Rio all performed strongly – accounting for more than 12,000 sales in 2013.
John Hargreaves, Head of Fleet and Remarketing at Kia Motors UK said: “Increasing business sales through our network has been central to our plan over recent years and we are now seeing a very strong return from that strategy. We took a decision to carefully manage our sales into the big fleet channels such as daily rental and Motability and we have provided support for our dealers to help them understand and maximise the local business possibilities and to compete effectively.
“Overall that means we saw a 37 per cent increase in this area of business during 2013 – with strong growth in all channels including independent contract hire, Kia contract hire and, rewardingly, in the Public Sector.”
It meant an increase in business registrations via the dealer network from just under 3,100 in 2010 to more than 14,000 vehicles last year. That represents a market share of 2.7 per cent – excluding daily rental, Motability and demonstrators.
One major area of success for Kia has been in sales to Small and Medium Enterprises – where cars are bought very much in the same way as retail cars. That performance increased by 30 per cent in 2013.
Mystery shopping and performance improvement company, Douglas Stafford, works with Kia Motors UK, providing a bespoke mystery shopping and customer experience programme, to include video mystery shopping.
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