Hyundai to hit 100,000 sales in 2014

HYUNDAI Australia's ambition to break the 100,000 sales mark for the first time will depend on the state of the local new-car market, according to the company's chief operating officer John Elsworth.

The Korean car-maker is on target to achieve the milestone, running 3.8 per cent up on last year when it achieved a total of 97,006 units for the full 12 months.

Speaking at the launch of the 2015 Santa Fe, HMCA chief operating officer John Elsworth said that while the market is not as strong as 2013, the company was on track to reach its goal.

“It’d be a fantastic achievement to hit 100,000 for the first time in the company’s history,” he said.

“We’re on track to do it, it’s a significant milestone for us and so we’re very focused on it,” he said. “But the market has to play ball.” The 3.8 per cent sales boost has pushed Hyundai's sales to 75,353 to the end of September this year, which is 2754 units ahead of the 72,599 it had shifted in the same period in 2013.

While Hyundai’s sales overall are growing Mr Elsworth said the Queensland and Western Australian markets are down, suggesting a slowing in the mining boom could be to blame.

Hyundai’s market share is up from 8.5 per cent this time last year to 9.0 per cent, with Mr Elsworth saying the growth has been difficult.

“That growth hasn’t been easy from our point of view.

“We’ve had to push pretty hard for the reason that the passenger car segment is down 5.3 per cent. Not many people recognise that our strength lies in passenger cars and in that segment we are second to Toyota with a 13.5 per cent share.

“The market is also growing in areas we are not fantastically strong. So while we have just unveiled an SUV here and that end of the market is growing, we’re limited by how many SUVs we can get. We’ve been volume constrained on the Santa Fe for the past 18 months.” The i30 hatch is Hyundai’s best-selling car, accounting for 31 per cent of the total year-to-date sales with 23,316 units shifted, followed by the ix35 compact SUV on 13,755.

About half the volume of its ix35 SUVs are sourced from Europe and Mr Elsworth said this too, has caused problems in terms of the price of the Euro.

“It’s a very challenging currency to work with at the moment, at about 69 Euro it does put pressure on us from a price point of view – it means we can’t push as hard as we would really like in the small SUVs.

“That said we are going to do our best to close the gap from an ix35 point of view for the balance of the year and see if we can grow year on year.

Despite the volatile market Mr Elsworth said he is determined to achieve the 100,000 sales this year.

“It’s a real challenge to push through that 100,000, but it’s a challenge we are trying to address every day,” he said.